With an average of 19 years of service in the industry each, the members of Audioslave are be getting on a bit. Chris Cornell’s on the brink of having his nicely-toned arms turn into a sheet of wrinkles, while Tom Morello’s busy chastising his kids on the naughty step for answering back with the retort, 'Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me.' Funny then, that their sound has only just matured.
With the dust settled, it turns out the lazy journalists who passed off the first album as a head-on clash between their former bands (Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine) struck lucky. The follow-up Out Of Exile was their awkward puberty record, so the revelation in Revelations is that they’re finally more than the sum of their parentage. Gone is Soundgarden’s trademark (Cornell’s soaring wails) while that of RATM – namely, Morello’s guitar obsession with the wah-wah pedal – is toned down.
In their place is a fully-fledged American stadium rock band, trading in a 70s melodic groove (‘Broken City’, ‘Original Fire’) that conjures up odd visions of Cornell in flares (hmm…). Their newfound self is also expressed lyrically, with ‘Sound Of A Gun’ in particular venting their political side (“This is for the innocent unknowns buried in the sand”).
But... sigh. Stadium rock? Semi-subtle anti-war songs? Ubiquitous rock producer Brendan O’Brien at the helm? Could it be that now Audioslave have given themselves spotlight for their personality, it turns out that they have none? How the mighty fall.