War Within A Breath, It's Land Or Death

Rage Against the Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles

I think I like this one even more than Evil Empire. In a lot of ways it's quite similar to that album, as opposed to their first album. The songwriting is as strong as Evil Empire and Zack's lyrics have improved a lot, being a lot more evocative than what I'd normally associate with rap metal (although of course in terms of content he continues to spin off the far left end of the political spectrum). On the other hand it's not as consistent as Evil Empire, while there are some excellent songs, such as Sleep Now In The Fire, Ashes In The Fall and Maria, there are also a few average ones, like Voice of the Voiceless and New Millennium Homes.

There's also a bit of a lack of passion from the band (other than Zack), possibly hinting at their impending breakup. Tom Morello still pulls out some awesome solos, but others sound like they're there just for the sake of it. His 'crazy noise' style, while brilliant on the first two albums, is getting a bit old by now. I think maybe he needed to move away from the gimmicks and concentrate more on the melody (which he eventually did on Renegades and the Audioslave stuff).

These criticisms are fairly minor though. Overall it was a pretty good note for them to end on.