Prophets of Rage - The Party's Over (2016)
How much longer until I can no longer use the "Profits of Rage" joke?!
Built up of the instrumental side of Rage Against the Machine, Chuck D of Public Enemy, and B-Real of Cypress Hill is a supergroup that sounds pretty good on paper. I like the instrumental side of RATM, I used to like a few Public Enemy songs, and I can still vibe with some Cypress Hill, so I was relatively excited to check out this EP. I'm gonna just go ahead and say that past some songs on the first Rage Against the Machine album, I was never a huge fan of them, but I haven't listened to them in.. I don't know how long, and that very well may change if I were to listen to them again. Part of the reason why I didn't like them initially was because of vocalist Zach de la Rocha's voice, so when I heard that he was essentially being replaced by some rappers that I felt like were better rappers with voices that were more appealing to me, naturally I had to check it out, if anything, due to pure curiosity. Part of me wishes that I hadn't.
For a debut EP, that, y'know, is supposed to introduce you to an audience, give 'em a little something to buy before or after coming to the show, just a little somethin' they can take home with them other than the warm feeling of disappointment, it's honestly pretty fucking "meh". It sounds pretty much exactly like you'd expect, but a bit worse. Cypress Hill, Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy all mesh, but not well. RATM is always good with their instrumentals, but when you have Chuck D sounding like he's about to have a heart attack, and B-Real, a fucking nasally pothead, rapping to you about politics, how we need to fight against the government, etc, this easily becomes a prime example of "how do we make a stereotypical RATM song?" and almost sounds like karaoke night at the local dive bar as two drunken guys yell "Killing in the Name", but trying to refrain from scaring anyone with an angry "MOTHERFUCKER!!" at the end.
Sure, there's two studio tracks, one of which being a Public Enemy cover ("Prophets of Rage", the song in which the group gets their name), a new one called "The Party's Over" which will absolutely shock you to learn that the title "The Party's Over" has NEVER been used by Cypress Hill, Rage Against the Machine, or even Public Enemy. Then you've got three live tracks, one of which being the token RATM cover of "Killing in the Name", a cover of Cypress Hill's "Shut 'Em Down", and then a sorta-cover of Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" titled "No Sleep Til Cleveland" where Chuck D's dusty ass just raps out his verses from "Fight the Power" over it for no real reason, considering that the original song was about being on tour, having sex with girls, etc. THAT was a badass song, this pseudo-cover sure as shit ain't.
I try not to get political in any of my writings on this site because I think it's stupid, but this group really doesn't have much to say other than "WE GOTTA FIGHT THE MAN!!" and that's really stupid because in the year of 2016, with Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton being our main two candidates for president, you'd think that the political nature of their music would be more needed and relevant than ever before, or at least as relevant, but the lyrics of the one new track on this EP mainly come across as if they were written by a 14 year old who just discover RATM, scribbling random lyrics in his notepad. The EP isn't horrifically bad, but if it's any indicator, this is one supergroup you can pretty safely write off, and be pissed off about because of all of the wasted potential of everyone in the group.
6/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
