Out Of Exile

Amazon.com In what was widely predicted to be a short-lived supergroup/side-project, Audioslave has instead gratifyingly yielded a bonafide band. The follow-up to their promising, if not quite artistically congealed '02 debut finds singer/songwriter Chris Cornell contributing a slate of songs that would have done his former Soundgarden proud, while guitarist Tom Morello and his former Rage Against the Machine bandmates cast them in a focused rhythmic groove that suggests that the old school can still yield a timely lesson or two. Cornell's best songs may still lurk in the shadows (the funeral hypno-blues of "Heaven's Dead," the martial metal of antiwar opener "Your Time Has Come," "The Worm" as anthem for self-loathing), yet they're now brightened with such surprisingly sunny fare as "Dandelion," "Doesn't Remind Me"'s charged, existentialist daydream and even a hook-rich, dangerously optimistic back-to-the-future power ballad in "Be Yourself." Morello's work on the title track and elsewhere is a study in taste and less-is-more efficiency, a telling hint of how forcefully these iconic '90s stars have sublimated their egos as their new music has blossomed; who said there are no second acts in American (rock) lives? --Jerry McCulley Product Description The follow-up to Audioslave's self-titled 2002 debut features the single "Be Yourself. Recorded with producer Rick Rubin, who also helmed their debut CD. Among the other songs slated for inclusion are: "Doesn't Remind Me", "Out of Exile", "The Curse", "#1 Zero" and "Your Time Has Come". Interscope. 2005.