(SSSC/Inertia)

Hey look, 2009, it’s rap-rock!

Tom Morello, guitarist from Rage Against The Machine, and Boots Riley, rapper from The Coup, have teamed up to form Street Sweeper Social Club. From the opening riff of the opening track (Fight! Smash! Win!) it’s obvious that SSSC are going to sound like RATM part two. Riley slots easily into the angry sloganeer role, while Morello continues pumping out the exact same powerful guitar/bass grind he’s famous for. The upside is that Riley’s lyrics have more of a tendency to make sense than Zack De La Rocha’s used to. On a couple of tracks the duo do try something different – Promenade sounds like a Communist squaredance chant complete with dosey-do and FBI comin’ round the outside, and Somewhere In The World It’s Midnight slips twanging country guitar into the verses before reverting to funk metal in the choruses with a sound like a ship’s hull under stress. Riley sort of raps but mostly just talks, “Y’all might just drink and fuck to this / let’s knuckle up and deconstruct this shit.” It’s a doomed beg for attention though, since this music is a much better soundtrack for a pit than a protest. This mostly by-the-numbers balls-meet-wall meathead rock is not a place where lyrical manifestos about corruption and conspiracy are going to be understood. The politics may be revolutionary, but the music isn’t.

**½

JODY MACGREGOR

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