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- Summary: The sophomore solo album for Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello was produced with Brendan O'Brien.
- Record Label: Epic/Red
- Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 11
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Mixed: 5 out of 11
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Negative: 2 out of 11
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The Rage Against the Machine guitarist's remarkable transformation from purveyor of weapons-grade funk-metal riffs into introspective protest folkie yields even more impressive fruit on his second solo effort The Fabled City.
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With The Fabled City, Morello's growth as a topical songwriter is enormous; he's brought the singer/songwriter into a cultural discussion, a dialogue, where we can dialogue not only about characters (who are treated with dignity as speaking subjects, not merely as objects to hang a tune on) and their struggles, but also with popular music again, as a ready tool for awareness of the world around us.
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Morello's singing could inspire chuckles rather than revolution. But on The Fabled City, he and O'Brien have dressed it up enough to make it seem almost super at times.
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Alternative PressArguably anything Morello releases is worth listening to and The Fabled City, while not perfect, is no different. [Oct 2006, p.153]
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The protest ballads plod, and even the song about praying for God to drown the president sounds more weary than pissed. The Nightwatchman is that rare crusader whose secret identity is more exciting than his alter ego.
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On his second agit-folk album under the Nightwatchman persona, Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello incorporates electric instrumentation and foregrounds his sonorously ponderous baritone, aspiring to, if not attaining, the gravity of Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, and Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen.
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Every song is predictable, workman-like, lacking invention.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 0 out of
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Mixed: 0 out of
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Negative: 0 out of