Tom Morello Makes Music That Sprays Over Multiple Genres with New Album The Atlas Underground Fire
3.0 out of 5 stars
Okay, so, if you have heard the 2018 album The Atlas Underground by Tom Morello, you probably know what you are going to be expecting from the supposed sequel album The Atlas Underground Fire - which is to say, a lot of chaos and diverse musical compositions.
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder what Rage Against the Machine would have sounded like if they made a dubstep song?”
No?
Me neither.
But that is just one sampling of a song from this album. Clearly, that song, titled “Charmed I’m Sure”, is nothing like Rage’s style of music, but the guitar work is definitely a Morello signature.
I actually do like three of the songs on this album, the rest are definitely not something I would listen to again.
“Let’s Get This Party Started” which features Bring Me The Horizon is actually a pretty good rock song. It has a lot of Papa Roach feeling and even has some of the same subject matter as a song like “Last Resort” without feeling like a rehash or copy of that song. It’s a good tune.
“Hold The Line” which features grandson is also a pretty rocking song that will get you pretty pumped up. It’s a bit hip-hop inspired, but the music of the song really push it into the rock genre.
The only other song I can say that I actually like on this album is “Driving to Texas” featuring Phantogram. It’s a very Lana Del Rey style song, but it’s got a cool vibe that is easy to listen to.
The rest of the album is all over the place from the AC/DC cover song “Highway to Hell” featuring Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder (The Boss’s vocals actually sound pretty good though) to an eight and a half minute instrumental at the end of the album called “On The Shore of Eternity” which is so repetitive that it is hard to listen to - though the guitar work is pretty cool.
I don’t want to be too critical of Morello, because I do truly respect him as a musician, but I think he knows that he put songs together that HE likes, but that doesn’t mean that they are easily accessible or listenable by a mass audience. I pride myself on being open minded about how musicians create their music, but the end product still has to be good. This one just isn’t there in my opinion.