One Day as a Lion EP

I was never a fan of Rage Against the Machine, but I’m happy to hear my favourite part of the band, vocalist Zack de la Rocha, teaming up with ex-The Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore on this EP that pretty much begs the question “how long must we wait for a full length album?”

Remember how bad it sucked when the rest of Rage joined forces with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell to form the god-awful Audioslave? Well, this effort is the exact polar opposite of that, so don’t worry. Gone are the BS guitar solos, which have been replaced by a stripped down, narrowly focused approach to anger management.

Stringed instruments seem to have fallen by the wayside in favour of vintage monosynths pumped through distortion pedals and big amp stacks; it sounds totally bad-ass. And de la Rocha is pretty much on fire for the whole damn thing. He comes off like a younger Adam Horowitz at times (perhaps having Mario C. on the mixing board has something to do with it). Biggest surprise: I’d swear he’s actually singing in places.

Photo by C.R. Stecyk III