It’s difficult to frame any discussion regarding Audioslave without mentioning the former bands of those involved, Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. The expectations must have been massive, you can feel the pressure within which this record exists, but true to the band members’ combined spirit, long-established, Audioslave as a whole set out to achieve its own thing.
The similarities with previous efforts are obvious, but never within the course of this album, does one feel they’re listing to a poor man’s version of either band that bore this one. Chris Cornell’s voice was always going to be a touchstone, regardless of where or how it was channeled. A tiger is a tiger in the jungle or the circus. The force of the music behind him, fierce and as powerful as ever, is freed from the responsibility of being a revolution’s heartbeat and gets to explore other emotions, and there’s plenty of them here.