Review by SilentScream213 for Rage Against the Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles (1999)

Just like their previous material, this album loses me in how repetitive and simple it is. Testify opens the album with a perfect example of what you can expect here. A groovy, funky riff kicks off the song well, the ever-impressive bass offering a great backbone. After repeating for a bit, the music all dies down to allow Zack to spit some venom. Then the riff comes back, then it disappears again… The whole time, the drums are essentially playing the same simple beat. By the end of the song, what seemed like a strong riff turns into “wow, that was the only riff on the song and I’m just about tired of it now.”

And then the next track does just about the same thing. Of course, the second track also offers a terrible… kazoo section? There are some surprises on the album, but usually they aren’t… great. The album does have a decent amount of variety between tracks, it’s more so that every track relies on one or two ideas and just repeats them over and over. Sleep Now in the Fire is definitely one of their best songs though.

What IS consistently great, is the basswork. Eternally funky, doing juicier leads than the guitars, the bass has so much power here. Any fans of great lead basswork can appreciate this. Unfortunately it doesn’t save the album from being rather boring, thanks to the other members playing quite simple, repetitive, and unevocative music. Vocal deliverance is strong, but lyrics range from great to poor, and just like the folly of the instrumentation, suffer from being far too repetitive.