Rage Against The Machine: The Battle Of Los Angeles

If Rage Against The Machine has accomplished nothing else in its epic musical battle against oppression, it has at the very least helped create some of the most surreal moments in '90s popular culture. Not only did it rail against violence and hatred in a Woodstock weekend filled with both, but it also made a Saturday Night Live appearance that allowed the words, "Ladies and gentlemen, Rage Against The Machine" to be uttered by none other than Steve Forbes. Rage's presence on the recent Woodstock '99 compilation, belting out "Bulls On Parade" alongside the likes of Korn and Kid Rock, wasn't so much surreal as kind of sad: The song, yet another strident screed from a band that doesn't seem to know how to write 'em any other way, sounded in context like the work of yet another pack of angry metal meatheads. Much is made of Rage Against The Machine's proselytizing about political prisoners, imperialism, corporate greed, and so on—few high-profile bands take those stands so aggressively, stubbornly, and predictably—but the impact of the messages is dulled by the bludgeoning sameness and diminishing returns of each successive album. The Battle Of Los Angeles hammers and flails away, with frontman Zack de la Rocha spewing ever more zealous invective about myriad injustices, but with the exception of Tom Morello's always-inventive, turntable-mimicking guitar tricks, it offers nothing but statements Rage has already made, in the way it's already made them.