The Debut/review of One Day As a Lion

So this is my first blog, ever. I'm pretty excited. Now I get to act like all those writers, ranters, reviewers, pundits, prophets, politicians, socialites, social 'etes, and socialists and every other know-it-all that thinks they do in fact know it all. Now guess what? No I'm not going to tell you that I know it all but I will say that I am going to have a great time acting like I do, cause in the end isn't that what life is about? Having fun, that is.

Well to kick off this momentous occasion I feel that there is no better subject to talk about than music. For those of you that know me know that music is my life. For those of you that don't know me you do know now. I've loved music since I knew that there was such a thing. I can sill remember drawing Smashing Pumpkins' hearts on my school folder when most of my friends cared most about little league. It's always been in my blood and probably always will be, so I have no better subject to talk about.

Just recently I listed to the new ep from One Day as a Lion, the side project collaboration between Rage Against the Machine's Zach De La Rocha and Mars Volta's Jon Theodore and I really hate to say that this new material is not exactly what I was hoping for but it is no flop by any means.

Rage Against the Machine has always held some sort of radical ideal in my head. I don't think that there has been a band for or since that has electrified as well as Zach and crew did back in the mid to late nineties. At times it seemed as if their sole purpose was to empower those that had none and to give a "voice to the voiceless." Spanning a career that included a revolution of a musical genre, four albums of near perfect mayhem and many political indictments and incitements it's almost a wonder that they didn't self-explode sooner than they did. Thinking of all the material that they have produced it's really easy to see how high the bar has been set especially knowing how much anticipation has been building for this release.

This ep, however, didn't deliver as much as I had hoped. I can't say the same for everyone though, it got four stars in Rolling Stone and some high reviews on Amazon. This disc still contains the fiery political rant that Rage was most famous for. The first track (as well as the first single), "Wild International" opens with the great declaration of: "They say in war the truth will be the first casualty." I half expect that to be the next new slogan on all t-shirts on the college campuses across America. De La Rocha continues in this style on "If You Fear Dying" saying, "I'm the crescent, the sickle, so sharp the blade/I'm the flick of the shank that opened your veins/I'm the flick of the shank that opened your veins/I'm the dusk, I'm the frightening calm/I'm a hole in the pipeline I'm a road side bomb." All of this is starkly familiar to us that love Rage but was is new is De La Rocha's experimentation with singing. On that same track he sings "The time is coming, rising up like the dawn of a red son. If you fear dying then your already dead." I have to say that I liked what he was trying to do. His voice is very tribal on those tracks, almost making it's own rhythm. A great sing along if there ever was one from Zach.

The production value is great with the perfect amount of effects. Also what is great is Jon Theodore's solid hand in delivering the production. I almost like him better than Rage's drummer Brad Wilk.

There are, however, two major nails that keep this disc from being truly great. The first is a new target of De La Rocha's penetrating prose: religion. More particularly I should say the Christian religion. The remarks are few but they are scathing. I found this utterly unnecessary and uncalled for. Religion is something that is deeply, deeply personal for most people and shotgunning it is not something that will get people fired up. Faith does not need a revolution Zach.

The other thing that kept me from truly liking it is the music itself. Thorough the album is sampled the same distorted keyboard synth making some of the songs nearly indistinguishable from each other. It's not a bad sound but we all know what to much of a good thing is. Any one of those tracks would stand on it's own, but together they muddle each other. I think it's a definite lack of creativity on their part.

I was thinking that it's almost a blessing that we didn't get a full length from De La Rocha because I don't think many people could take ten to twelve tracks of this nor would it look very good for him. I liked it but not that much. If this was delivered by an un-established artist I think we could talk about it's brilliance but this was recorded by a legend, De La Rocha! He knows better, he's established. WTF Zach!

I guess we can still hope for that album that was in the works that had collaborations with, among others Saul Williams, ?uestlove, and DJ Shadow. The track that dropped in 2006 "March of Death" he did with DJ Shadow was no short of breathtaking. I think that this is a step down from what he released then. On the other hand maybe he's going to release a series of five song ep's of all these collaborations each with there different style. That would be cool.
In closing I liked it and I will sill enjoy listening to it. It will make you want to drive really fast and pump your fist high in the air in open rebellion but there are some not so small factors that keep it being a classic.

So this is my blog. I'll review more albums, talk music, talk love, talk life, you know the usual. I'll even through in some writing. Enjoy.