Out of Exile

Good job, Audioslave. You have managed to waste something like 8 billion tons of plastic to produce a disc that contains 12 tracks that would have been better off tacked onto your first album. Just because you happen to have the home-field advantage of being the amalgamation of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden does not exempt you from evidencing further creativity and ingenuity. “The Worm” is probably the most obvious example of unnecessary packaging. It’s hardly distinguishable from any song on the first album, with Chris Cornell’s vocal range never daring to venture to new territory. “Your Time Has Come”? Different name, same song. In all fairness, “Be Yourself” does boast an opening guitar riff rad enough to almost justify Out of Exile’s existence. Almost, that is, until people realize that they could spend their money on an album that doesn’t rely on one song to pull the rest of its dead weight.