One Day As A Lion - One Day As A Lion EP

With little talk of a new Rage Against The Machine album and a waste bin full of scrapped collaborations with everyone from ?uestlove to Trent Reznor, Zach de la Rocha has decided to take the reins, writing his own riffs on a distorted keyboard and recruiting ex-Mars Volta drum god Jon Theodore to lay down the beats. One Day As a Lion’s debut EP sounds like a Rage demo in its nascent stages; songs lurch forward with the same behind-the-beat pull and bottom-heavy fuzz, but gone is Tom Morello’s wacky ride-the-scales shredding. The focus here is on de la Rocha’s sharp, arsenic-soaked rhymes, which lick shots at American media control (“Wild International”), terror-watch lists (“Ocean View”) and religious fundamentalism (“Last Letter”). While his delivery is mostly laid-back, Theodore displays short spurts of virtuosity, such as the pummelling man-beast fills on “If You Fear Dying.” The disc only falters when de la Rocha attempts to sing some of the hooks, sounding like a pissed-off Patchy the Pirate.

This CD review originally appeared in Eye Weekly

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