Audioslave - Out of Exile

Genre rock Publisher Interscope / Epic Records External Links Official Website Interscope Records Epic Records Axis of Justice

The thick, menacing waves on the cover of Audioslave's sophomore release Out of Exile draw you in. Looking more like a sea of oil than water, the waves, coupled with the ominous clouds in the distance signals that more is going on here than it appears.

The same could be said for this super group's album itself. Though this may seem hard to believe if you are an Audioslave naysayer, Out of Exile is a vast improvement over the band's eponymous debut.

Though still far from being a cohesive whole, Audioslave at least feels more comfortable together than they did before. Chris Cornell doesn't try as hard to be the metal God he used to be with Soundgarden. Tom Morello tones down his innovative guitar style a bit here as well. Morello also finds a way to combine his past with blues inflections, something that yields far greater results here.

Oddly enough, the consistent positive thing in Audioslave is the rhythm section. Bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilkins were hitting their stride on Rage Against the Machine's final album of original material, The Battle of Los Angeles. This carried over to Rage's collection of covers Renegades as well as on the new band's first release. Commerford's bass lines carry the melody while Wilkins provides, at different times, a rock-solid foundation or an all-out assault.

It is the embrace of melody on most of Out of Exile that ultimately saves it from being a carbon-copy of the debut. That album's "I Am the Highway," landed smack dab in the middle of an overload of same-sounding generic arena rock. "Highway" would seem to be the template for most of the songs here. From the "stay positive" attitudes found on "Be Yourself" to the non-committal slacker vibe of "Doesn't Remind Me" or the Pearl Jam-esque "Dandelion," Audioslave manage to weave together an album of actual songs rather than two bookends of high-octane guitars and ear-shattering Valhalla cries. And in the end, the band has made more of an arena rock album this time out than the first time, most likely by not forcing the material into a specific mold. Now if they'd only push the envelope further on their next album, perhaps then they can truly be called a super group.