By Jim Rowland
A founding member of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, legendary guitarist, songwriter, producer and activist Tom Morello unveils his latest full-length project, and first solo rock album, ‘Everyone Gets Everything They Want’ this month, which features guest appearances from Serj Tankian, Kneecap, Beartooth and his own 15-year old guitar wiz son Roman.
The album bursts out of the starting blocks with both the title track and ‘Adjourn It’ (featuring Serj Tankian & Roman Morello) offering super-heavy and super-grooving riffing in equal measure, and ultra-catchy tunes. Following similar lines are the spikey rap/gospel fusion of ‘I Am Not Yours To Command’, the punk-infused ‘Date Night’ and the light and shade of ‘Untethered’.
There’s more to the album than the core of these super heavy and grooving rock tracks though. The collaboration with Kneecap is a hard-hitting techno/rap attack, Beartooth injects a soulful vibe into the heaviness on ‘Everything Burns’, ‘The Last Rung on the Ladder’ and ‘Pretend You Remember Me’ add an acoustic vibe into the mix, whilst ‘Soldier in the Army of Love’ is a cracking dark piano ballad evoking the spirit of Johnny Cash in his latter years.
Of course with Tom Morello you’re going to get hard-hitting and passionate lyrical content. The anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-Nazi message is loud and clear throughout the album and of course very relevant right now. That culminates in the powerful album closer ‘They Can’t Kill Us All’, a timeless acoustic folk track with a strong message in the finest tradition of American protest songs over the past sixty or so years.
‘Everyone Gets Everything They Want’ is, simply put, a quite superb album with a message that is very much required right now.
- ‘Everyone Gets Everything They Want’ will be released on Friday (25 September).