Blogarhythms

Do you remember that new Zach de la Rocha record I mentioned in that post about Beck and Tricky a couple of weeks ago? You might’ve even caught the audio leak of lead track “Wild International” when Dan posted it in the News section a few days ago. Well, that shit is out, and I like it.

If I’m being perfectly honest here, I was prepared to hate on it. Why, you ask? Well, because… It’s not a Rage Against the Machine album, even though they’ve essentially reunited. It’s also not that solo “Hip-Hop” album with the all-star production line-up that he reportedly started working on right after RATM broke up either. And at this point it’s just easier to be salty at dude for taking the last eight years off to do whatever the hell he’s been doing for the last eight years.

But like I said, I don’t hate the self-titled debut EP from One Day as a Lion, Zach’s new project with former Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore (whose other credits include work with Will Oldham, Trans Am and HiM) at all. Despite the fact that the group is a duo (with Zach on vocals and keys and Jon on skins) and their sound is decidedly stripped down, owing a debt to the Hardcore Punk and Hip-Hop that influenced Zach prior to forming RATM, the music the two make reminds me more of the cagey menace and explosive attack of his former band than anything the other members have done in his absence.

There are no guitars or bass on the disc, just keys, bangin’ drums and Zach’s self-righteous rasp. But the ferocious growls, distorted fuzz, pitch-bent notes and squealing ululations Zach squeezes out of his keyboard often sound as aggressively bone-rattling and twistedly pyrotechnic as as Tim Commerford and Tom Morello did on the strings. The mix of raw drums, lo-fi keys and ferocious lyric-spitting reminds me more than a little of The Roots‘ recent output and makes me wonder if de la Rocha hasn’t been studying Black Thought a bit. And it’s all such a revelation that I’m suddenly curious as to what One Day as a Lion might look and sound like live.

Unsurprisingly Zach is as vitriolic as ever on the microphone, shouting down government officials, white-collar fat cats, religious fundamentalists, war mongers, music industry pimps, blood-suckers of the poor & disenfranchised and complacent “sheople” alike. But he seems to be feeling his own shit more than ever, dropping clever pop-culture references, calling attention to how hard he’s ripping the mic, how passionately he’s spitting and how focused he is on representing the Hip-Hop culture in his own unique, but authentic way.

One Day as a Lion “If You Fear Dying”

While I’m on the subject of music that fuses Hip-Hop and live instrumentation, I have to mention Oakland, California’s The High Decibels. A live band fronted by emcee/poet Duke “Duke the Bossman” Johnson featuring emcee Chief, multi-instrumentalist KC Booker and DJ Gordo Cabeza they just dropped a new self-titled disc which mixes bluesey bar-room guitar licks, shuffly beats, sharp scratches, old-school-inflected choruses and raps that combine free-wheeling early-’90s lyricism and Oakland pimp-isms.

I was caught unawares by their simple-but-striking visual style, care-free but conscious true-school-isms and rootsy Blues-Rock riffs. I couldn’t help but admire the way they simultaneously practice ’90s Rap revivalism while paying tribute to proto-Rock Rhythm & Blues and the Rock & Roll and Soul revues of yesteryear. It’s wildly unpolished, and almost uncomfortably anachronistic compared to the trends set and followed by the style-conscious artists of today, but it’s undeniably fun, and hearkens back to more innocent times in more ways than one.

The High Decibels “Home Run Hitters”

One last thing before I go… My homeboy Sankofa just put out a project on a similar tip, pitting his gruff verb-hocking against the fuzz-boxery and kit-smashing of Brenn Beck from Fort Wayne, Indiana Garage/Punk/Blues duo Left Lane Cruiser, up for free download on his website. It’s called Music With Friends 2 and I apparently lent a bunch of crazy quotes to the promotional campaign. I don’t remember saying any such things. But they sound like shit I’d say. And the music is free, so I really can’t complain.