Reviews > Street Sweeper Social Club
It’s A Dirty Job, But Someone’s Gotta Do It
By Skwerl, June 22nd, 2009
Tom Morello is one of those artists who is just so darn cool, it’s hard to be critically objective about his music. It’s not like it’s bad and I’m afraid to admit it- it’s just not always as amazing as I’d love to be able to say.
When it was announced that his brand new band, Street Sweeper Social Club would be unveiled on Nine Inch Nails’ farewell tour with Jane’s Addiction, the news- and teaser single- were generally very well received. When the full-length album was released last week, with no advances or leaks available prior, I purchased it immediately.
Now it’s time to pick it apart and try and dance around the fact that despite how cool Morello and frontman Boots Riley are, and despite how truly badass that minigun boombox graphic is, the Street Sweeper album is a far cry from Evil Empire.
By the way, has anyone noticed that with those glasses, Boots Riley is a dead ringer for Robert Downey Jr.’s Lincoln Osiris in Tropic Thunder? Dude.
The album opens with Fight! Smash! Win!, the aforementioned teaser single. When it appeared online, it brought promise. The formula seemed to pick up where Rage Against The Machine left off, and Boots Riley of The Coup is known for the sort of lyrical ammunition that made Zack De La Rocha such a formidable weapon. The track is a bit cliché, a slow pitch right down the center of the plate for the target audience, but that’s to be expected of an introductory cut.
The Oath and Clap For The Killers are the other two of three tracks that were available prior to the album’s release; both featured on Trent Reznor’s NIN/JA tour sampler made available as a free download. Killers was the superior of the two, thanks largely to the song’s originality and Riley’s wavy flow. The former unfortunately seems to be trying a little too hard to be a battle cry, and it comes off as trite at times, wearing thin by the time that it gets to the not very commanding “alright, motherfuckers!”
This lack of teeth is mainly what keeps Boots Riley from being a replacement for De La Rocha, and it’s why the best tracks on the album are the ones where Street Sweeper doesn’t sound like they’re trying to be Rage Against The Machine. Most notable is Promenade (pronounced by Boots like “Lemonade,” either a mistake noone chose to correct, or a play on words suggesting an explosive dance party). The “ooohs” & “aaahs” backing up the chorus are so Chili Peppers-esque, I wonder if it’s not Frusciante himself providing them. And that little deviation from the Rage battle-hop formula, as subtle as it may be, makes a world of difference. It helps to give the track an identity that goes a little way towards making Street Sweeper feel like a real new band rather than a quilt of old scraps of things we’ve seen before:
Another track that aides in this cause is Somewhere In The World It’s Midnight. It starts off repetitive, built around a flimsy lyrical device; Somewhere in the world it’s 3 o’clock… Somewhere in the world it’s 5 o’clock… Somewhere in the world it’s 8 o’clock… Somewhere in the world it’s… You get where it’s all going. But after the first chorus, the music takes a sharp left turn, Riley’s delivery follows, and the song redeems its opening verse.
Ultimately, the album just doesn’t push the envelope enough for us to really get excited. The few good tracks are good enough to listen to over and over, but otherwise most of it gets old disappointingly quick. We love where the band is headed on the outstanding cuts highlighted, we just hope they take it further if and when they deliver a sophomore effort.
Street Sweeper Social Club
June 16th, 2009
Warner Music Group
01. Fight! Smash! Win!
02. 100 Little Curses
03. The Oath
04. The Squeeze
05. Clap For The Killers
06. Somewhere In The World It’s Midnight
07. Shock You Again
08. Good Morning, Mrs. Smith
09. Megablast
10. Promenade
11. Nobody Moves (‘Til We Say Go)
About Skwerl
Kevin "Skwerl" Cogill was taught his first computer programming language by his Mother's marijuana dealer at age ten. His first job involved hustling TicketMaster lines on behalf of a New Jersey concert ticket broker at age fourteen, followed by a job in graphic design shortly after graduating high school and trade school simultaneously in 1998. He built his first website in 1996 or so, and continues to do things the way they should be done, rather than the way everyone else does. He's a bit of an asshole, but he's fiercely loyal to fellow fans of good music.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Skwerl now resides in Los Angeles.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:03 PM
The live show was 100x better than what i’ve heard from them so far.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:25 PM
I caught these guys earlier in June opening for Janes/ NIN and I thought live they were so kick ass and exciting, so I was really anticipating this album so to read this I am quite surprised the album didn’t deliver. I haven’t purchased it yet but is it not so good because it lacks originality or because the songs actually suck? I’m still gonna check it out myself cause Tom Morello is such a badass but I was just wondering :)
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 PM
the live clips i’ve seen have been awesome. but the album was just underwhelming for the most part. i had a hard time admitting it though, and wouldn’t mind a counter argument or two. check it out and let me know what you think.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:09 AM
Morello is a horribly overrated as a guitarist.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 AM
Morello is without question the most original and innovative guitarist of our generation. No one is even in the same league in those areas.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:09 PM
Joseph, you need to get out more.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:04 PM
so name a more original and innovative guitarist of morello’s generation. i can think of a couple possible contenders, but i’d love to hear what you’ve got if you think there’s no contest.
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:18 PM
Flynn Gower, Fredrik Thordendal, Bill Kelliher, and Andrew “Drew” Goddard are just a few who would demolish his ass.
Once you get past the fact that he’s a commie bastard and you realize he does brings power riffs to the party but it’s just about always the same cadence and the solos are generally whammy pedaled to death. The shame of it all is he has the ability to shred and if showed some more of that, the hype gap could be closed considerably.
I definitely preferred his playing in Audioslave where he was able to showcase some different abilities.
The political stuff is just nauseating though. It comes across as infantile whining. That’s another reason I preferred Audioslave; the songs had a variety of lyrical content. Too bad Chris Cornell just sounded like he was mailing it in for the most part.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:24 PM
that’s what i expected- a bunch of metal guitarists that can shred. irrelevant to joe’s claim that morello is the most original and innovative.
so i’ll provide one that competes in the category being discussed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shYdqbJgQdc
though i’m not extensively familiar with cog & karnivool’s stuff, feel free to dig up some crazy videos if they can do more than the meshuggah & mastodon dudes.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:37 AM
Not that Morello isn’t a great guitarist, but I think Jack White is easily the most innovative and original guitarist of his generation. And those metal shredder guys are good, but this isn’t about technicality. If it were, though, John Petrucci would shred circles around any one of these dudes.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:56 AM
agreed on petrucci… white is definitely a creative artist. competition for sure. most of what he does is copying the delta blues with distortion, but then he’ll build his own guitars or stick retractable harmonica microphones in them and shit… i think it’s debatable, but definitely a contender.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:04 AM
possible contenders…… Bumblefoot, Adam Jones, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.
And maybe a little before this generation, but John Fucking Frusciante, anyone?
True, Jack does come from that traditional blues background, while adding distortion and pyrotechnics, but his take on that shit is very original, ballsy, and I don’t really hear anyone else trying to do it with such ferocity and integrity.
That scene in “It might get Loud” of Jack building a guitar out of a piece of wood and a pickup and gutiar string on the porch says it all. Dude can build his own fucking guitar, like a rock and roll MacGuyver.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:28 AM
all contenders. when i try and think about who gets the most wild types of entirely new sounds coming out of their guitar, i keep coming back to morello. but if you look at structures and melodies too, those guys definitely compete.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Absolutely. All things considered, it all comes back to Morello. When I think hard about it, no one is doing, or sounds like, what Morello is doing. Like his scratching-influenced, wah-soaked whammy technique or not, dude has an original sound. That shit he pulls off is not easy. Overrated? Not so much. Underappreciated is more like it.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:22 PM
Shit. Josh Homme. For sure. Unpredictable, beautiful solos, complex rhythms, and tone for days.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Flynn Gower and Andrew “Drew” Goddard metal? Hmmmmm…..you have no idea skwerl, but I understand they’re in Aussie bands so you;re excused for your ignorance.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:30 PM
This song is perfection..3 piece mind you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7I8evqW2Eg
and
Live version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ-emtRsp8g
June 24th, 2009 at 1:42 PM
Its not about shredding or technique for me. I much prefer how the guitar fits in to the holistic structure to the song-guitar feeding off the bass line,etc. Adam Jones does it perfectly.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:01 PM
sorry, two metal guys, a guy in band that went from nu-metal to prog rock, and a prog rock dude. and i wasn’t going to poke fun, but i came across this “incredible” video of thordendal btw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5YEqmIIdj8
and anyway, the discussion was about originality and innovative technique. so you might like these dudes better, and noone’s saying they’re not amazing guitarists in their own right, but morello uses the instrument in ways noone had heard before.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:26 PM
I finally got the album about a week or so ago and have been painfully trying to listen to it and get into but this review is pretty much on the money Skwerl. I just can’t get into it and it’s sad cause there is alot of potential (AND TALENT/ hype) but the songs just don’t live up to it. Sad cause like I said they were really awesome live, hey maybe they should make a live record? If they released a record of live recording from what I heard, I think that would sound cool, they jam very well together but the album…I dunno, maybe I’ll give it more time but for now I’ll put it away for a bit.
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:09 PM
MorelLOL the fact you use ‘he’s a commie bastard’ when talking about his guitar abilities, paints you as a hater who can’t be taken seriously in your assessment.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:43 PM
I agree with most of what you’ve said here, except I reckon Promenade is by far the worst song on the album (that bouncing riff in the verse is just foul), and I would have given it 3&1/2 stars.