Rhythm Divine

Most of us, who are cricket lovers, conjure up these dream teams in our head with the best players from every nation, and some apply the same dream building techniques in various other areas. But how many of us see these dreams turning into reality?
Bands splitting and getting into bitter spats stemming from egoism is not something new, but for these individuals to go ahead and create history for the second time is a rare occurrence. Rage Against The Machine, often referred to as RATM and Soundgarden have been rock icons in their times. However, fame brings a lot of unwanted baggage. Succumbing to the pressures of their own success, both these bands split up. After a long dry and unproductive break, Brad Wilk (drummer), Tim Commerford (bassist) and Tom Morello (one of the most innovative axe-men of the world) from RATM joined hands with Soundgarden front man Chriss Cornell to give birth to Audioslave. The RATM trio had gone through a rough patch and Chris Cornell had been in the rehabilitation centre for alcoholc addiction. But this did not hold these four men back and they came together to start the phenomenon called Audioslave.

Audioslave released their first self titled album in the year 2002 and sold more than two million copies the energetic and ever so musically loud single Cochise started things off for Audioslave followed by the hit Show Me How To Live. The music videos of these songs involved almost the same about of skill as the creation of the music itself. Like A Stone showed an unknown facet of the band and left them venturing out into new grounds.

In the year 2005, Audioslave created history by becoming the first rock outfit to play in Cuba at the la Tribuna Anti Imperialista in front of 60,000 odd fans. The show featured most of the songs from the first album. Besides this they also played many songs from the then upcoming album Out of Exile giving the crowd an exclusive sneak preview of the things to follow. Singles from their previous respective bands also made it to the concert play list showing the willingness of the band to try out something out of ordinary.

Out of Exile was Audioslaves second album. This album strengthened the individuality of Audioslave and showed a lot of growth and confidence. Chriss Cornels dependence on alcohol and a successful effort to do away with this vice was just one of the many examples of why the album was titled the same. Songs like Be Yourself, Dandelion, Man or Animal, and many more showed us just why Audioslave is amongst the best music making groups in the world.

Their latest album Revelations released in the present year. The sound of this album had a rather evolved feel to it. Anthems such as The Original Fire have a retro touch to but the music has no lost its signature style. Sound of A Gun and Shape of Things to Come show a magical interplay of the bass line along with the lead guitar.

One can observe a slight shift in the style and progression of this album in comparison to the earlier ones so it wouldn't be wrong to conclude that this rolling stone is living up to the old saying. Let's hope that this phenomenon continues to burst through our speaker systems and keeps the neighbours window shut.