Renegade (Sony)
I have listened to Rage's fourth effort and I'm in no danger of being locked up for subversion by oppressive governments worldwide. What happened? I may have entered a new decade in the seven years I've aged since I first saw them live, but I don't think it's me.
Rage's metallic guitars and hip-hop beats have always combined with inspiring and riotous lyrics to form aggressive, cathartic music - a hybrid form of rap-metal they pioneered. It seems the price of Renegade, a compilation of brilliantly selected covers, is the absence of singer Zach de la Rocha's (who has since left the band) political pen and his righteous cries of revolution and accompanying off-the-metre intensity. Not that this album isn't good and worth it for the original interpretations alone.
The band has covered one of hip-hop's founding fathers, Afrika Bambaataa, the zany irony of Devo and iconic poetry of Dylan as part of what Tom Morello calls 'paying homage to the musical renegades'. The Rolling Stone's Streetfight-ing Man courses with de la Rocha's synchopated lyrical precision. No karaoke crack-up, Rage have made all the songs their own, rendering them unrecognisable with their audacity and roaring spirit.
