The Atlas Underground Fire - Tom Morello
Tom Morello. CREDIT: Press
Tom Morello is the guitarist of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, but in the last decade, he’s developed an extensive solo portfolio. He’s fiery, both in his signature guitar style that makes extensive use of whammy pedals and in his passionate support for social justice. The Atlas Underground Fire is a sequel album to his 2018 effort The Atlas Underground, which saw Morello pair his style with a wide array of collaborators. The Atlas Underground featured a large number of rap, pop, and electronic collaborations, including Knife Party, Big Boi and Killer Mike, Steve Aoki, and GZA and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. The Atlas Underground Fire leans more into rock acts (not to say that its predecessor lacked rock collaborations, or that Fire lacks rap or pop collaborations, just that it’s more prevalent here). The Atlas Underground Fire is an eclectic album, unified mostly through Morello’s guitar. As such, I think a track-by-track approach is most appropriate for this record, to highlight each song’s unique qualities.
“Harlem Hellfighter”
The album’s only solo track is an outright banger. There’s some light influence from hyperpop and alternative hip-hop (think Injury Reserve), seen in the pairing of highly compressed, fuzzy guitars with piercing high synths and trap hats. That’s not even the fun part. “Harlem Hellfighter” also features Vocaloid, the famous Japanese singing synthesizer. Well, I haven’t been able to find a source saying that it’s Vocaloid specifically, but if it’s not Vocaloid, then it’s something similar. It’s fun to hear in the track, and it gives “Harlem Hellfighter” a cute gimmick that helps it stand out more.
“Highway to Hell (feat. Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder)”
He got Springsteen to sing “Highway to Hell.” Tom Morello got the Boss and Eddie Vedder to cover AC/DC. The sheer cool factor of that is astonishing. That being said, the track itself is kind of meh. This song has two of the most legendary vocalists in rock and roll history singing together, and it doesn’t seem to understand that. Springsteen and Vedder don’t get the reverence they deserve, in my opinion. That seems to be a deliberate choice, to make the song just a normal song, to not burden it with the responsibility of featuring these legends, and while I respect it, I disagree. Morello’s guitar solo is great, and the track isn’t bad (trust me, we’ll get to a bad track later), just a bit underwhelming once you move past the pedigree of Springsteen and Vedder.
“Let’s Get the Party Started (feat. Bring Me the Horizon)”
Here’s where we get into the meat of the album, and where my primary thesis comes into play. Tracks 3-12 on The Atlas Underground Fire feature collaborations with artists from across music, and each song is Morello putting his own spin on that artist’s genre and style. “Let’s Get the Party Started,” is a beautiful love child of BMTH’s pop-metal and a bouncy, RATM-style riff. The lyrics feel pulled straight out of BMTH’s amo, with self-destructive behavior at the forefront. In particular, I draw a connection between this track and “Wonderful Life (feat. Dani Filth)” from amo. Compare two lyrics: “‘Cos I’m going off the deep end / Yeah I’m drowning inside / And it doesn’t feel important if I’m dead or alive” in the former; “Alone, getting high on a Saturday night / I’m on the edge of a knife / Nobody cares if I’m dead or alive / Oh, what a wonderful life” in the latter. Also, Oli Sykes is just a fantastic singer, and his ability to pivot from angry, talk-singing to a soaring hook is perfect for this kind of song. “Let’s Get the Party Started” is the album’s most popular track, and it’s easy to see why.
“Driving to Texas (feat. Phantogram)”
I haven’t really kept up with much of Phantogram’s work since I first heard of them over five years ago, but this song very much pulls from their ambient, alt style. The lyrics are poetic in a way not many of the album’s words are, which befits Phantogram’s genre; “I was alive, I drank the sunlight just like you / I changed my state to replicate the blackness of the blood you drew.” It’s very elemental and figurative. The song also features a beautiful melodic guitar solo towards the end that, while making extensive use of the whammy pedal, is delicate, even pretty, in a way Tom Morello guitar solos usually aren’t.
“The War Inside (feat. Chris Stapleton)”
I’m not going to beat around the bush, this song is a tribute to Chris Cornell. I cannot believe I’ve lived my entire life in sheer ignorance of the beauty of Chris Stapleton’s voice, and on this track, he’s channeling Cornell. His deep baritone ascends into a high tenor range that just barely sounds strained but is always completely controlled. Just his enunciation of words reminds me of Cornell. Is there a slight twang? Of course, Stapleton is still a country singer, and while “The War Inside” doesn’t really channel country in the same way other tracks channel their guest’s home genres, the acoustic strumming and relatively simple, unintrusive drums draw from some country staples. That said, there is one instrumental falter. In the previous track, Morello tailored his solo to fit the song’s mood, but he doesn’t do it as well here. The first half of the solo (starting at 2:08) is perfectly fine, but the second half (starting at 2:21) overuses the whammy pedal to a point where, in combination with the delay effect, it starts sounding like a siren riser from an EDM track. It just makes me laugh, because it sounds like a fire truck at points. It doesn’t ruin the song or anything, but I do wish Morello could’ve reigned himself in a little bit, perhaps even given Stapleton more time to sing, because “The War Inside” has beautiful lyrics. This song made me cry when I listened to it for the first time, because it’s so upfront with what it’s about. “I can’t leave when I want to / I can’t see when the sun’s gonna shine.” The sound of the song is a tribute to Cornell, but the lyrics are about him, about his struggles with depression. I don’t want to dwell on such a serious and tragic topic, but this song does one of the greatest voices of all time justice.
“Hold the Line (feat. Grandson)”
Now, we move from a deep and moving song to an incredibly simple one. “Hold the Line,” more than any other track, sounds like it was made by its guest; it’s literally just a Grandson song put through an Atlas Underground filter. Not that I’m complaining; Grandson’s genre-blending fusion rock melds nicely with Morello’s heavy riffs, and his voice has call-to-action energy that reminds me a bit of Zack de la Rocha.
“Naraka (feat. Mike Posner)”
You all remember Mike Posner, right? The “Cooler Than Me” guy. Yeah, he’s still around, still making music, and apparently doing a lot of hiking (the man climbed Mt. Everest this past May.) “Naraka” itself is good, with guitar-void verses building into gritty choruses featuring heavy synth bass and trap hi-hats. It’s very reminiscent of modern alt-pop. I don’t have much more to say about the instrumentation, because I want to get to the lyrics. First, what the hell is “Naraka”? The first Google results are all for a hack-and-slash battle royale video game called Naraka: Bladepoint, and while I can’t confirm for sure, I don’t think that’s what this song is about. But, when Posner sings “David and Saul” (a line repeated multiple times in the song), it became clear that it had to do with religion. So I Googled “Naraka religion” and came to learn that, in Indian religions, Naraka is hell. That’s where the “I’m going down” in the last chorus comes from, as well as the references to “gnashing of teeth” and “gnarled of metal." And when I say “Indian religions” I mean all of them--Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism all use the term. I’d love to write a companion piece diving into the religious references in “Naraka,” because there are quite a few, and I quite frankly don’t have the space to go into depth here. “Naraka” is a really good song, one that I hope doesn’t fall through the cracks.
“The Achilles List (feat. Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley)”
This song feels like a track from The Atlas Underground. It’s overtly political in a way most of Underground Fire’s songs aren’t, but Underground’s were. Part of me would have preferred if the lyrics were a bit more… subtle. For example, “Too much minorities get locked up / Too much innocent in police handcuff,” while a true statement, isn’t the most interestingly worded line. But it kind of works! Damian Marley (you may know his father, Robert), has a very distinct rapping style, and he makes these very direct lyrics work through really good delivery. The instrumental isn’t what you would expect to be paired with his Jamaican style. Depending on your taste, that might work, or it might not work. “The Achilles List” is probably the most hit-or-miss track on the album, and given how forgettable Morello’s instrumental breakdown is at the end of the song, it might lean more towards miss for me.
“Night Witch (feat. phem)”
I went into this song completely clueless about phem. After some extensive research (i.e. reading her Twitter feed), I left even more clueless. When asked to describe her sound in an interview, she said “Sad, angry, cute.” As for the song, I fucking love it. I did not like this song on first listening, but it’s really grown on me. Guitar takes a back seat here. There’s no heavy breakdown, but Morello’s whammy guitar takes a nice supporting role, allowing a lovely bassline to shine through. The chorus is CATCHY, too. I find myself singing it to myself as I walk throughout my day.
“Charmed I’m Sure (feat. Protohype)”
The most popular track from Morello’s prior album was “Battle Sirens,” a collaboration with EDM duo Knife Party. I was not a fan of “Battle Sirens” because it didn’t feel like it integrated Morello’s guitar with the dubstep, the two elements felt disjointed. “Charmed I’m Sure” is this album’s successor to “Battle Sirens,” but it works a lot better. Morello’s guitar is properly integrated into the dubstep drops, and the resulting mixture is heavy, lively, and never feels repetitive.
“Save Our Souls (feat. Dennis Lyxzén of Refused)”
Dennis Lyxzén is the vocalist for Refused, a Swedish hardcore punk band that dates back to 1991, the same year Rage Against the Machine formed. Fun fact, Lyxzén was voted Sweden’s sexiest man in 2004. How’s the song, you ask? Very bad. Yeah, “Save Our Souls” is the album’s weakest link. Lyxzén is trying to do his hardcore punk vocals, but the instrumental and especially the tempo are not structured in such a way that Lyxzén is properly supported. It’s way too slow, and the drumming is completely the wrong style for Lyxzén’s vocals. Most of the other tracks on the album make extra effort to support their vocalists’ unique styles, but “Save Our Souls” drops the ball. Consequently, the resulting song is really, really generic. The song is co-written by Simone Cogo of the Bloody Beetroots, whom Morello previously collaborated with on an EP. That EP, titled “The Catastrophists,” is pretty good, so why is this song so damn boring?! As one YouTube commenter put it: “I don’t understand how two legends could make such a horrible song.” To quote another “Could be better. Could be so much better.....”
“On the Shores of Eternity (feat. Sama’ Abdulhadi)”
Sama’ Abdulhadi is a Palestinian DJ and the face of her country’s rising techno scene. On December 27th, 2020, she was arrested after performing a DJ set at a mosque in the West Bank. Crowds of people descended onto the site after hearing reports of people partying and doing drugs at the mosque. To be clear, what she did was entirely legal, she had the necessary permits, but she was targeted by religious conservatives in her country. “On the Shores of Eternity” (great title) is functionally a DJ set, with Morello playing over sequences of drum machine beats. It’s eight minutes and thirty-eight seconds long, but Abdulhadi is constantly changing the drum pattern, so it never feels stale, and the strong 808 kick is mixed well. While it’s a tad long for my taste (I would love to hear a radio edit of this song), fans of Abdulhadi’s style––light on melodies but heavy on ambience and vibes––will enjoy it.
The Atlas Underground Fire isn’t a particularly cohesive album, and it lacks some of Morello’s usual political punch, but as a genre-spanning compilation of sorts, it really works. If you’re not a fan of Tom Morello or his bands, I can’t really recommend this album as a whole, but I can recommend many of the tracks as individual songs.
For those of you who like highlights and lowlights, here you go.
Highlights:
“The War Inside (feat. Chris Stapleton)”
“Naraka (feat. Mike Posner)”
“Let’s Get the Party Started (feat. Bring Me the Horizon)”
“Night Witch (feat. phem)”
Lowlights:
“Save Our Souls (feat. Dennis Lyxzén of Refused)”