Review: One Day As a Lion

One Day As a Lion

With just about every band opening their political mouths over the last few years, one voice has not only been quiet but missing entirely. Zach de la Rocha breaks his eight year studio silence, not with his band Rage Against the Machine, but with side project One Day As a Lion. De la Rocha mans the keyboards and the microphone and ex-Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore keeps the beat steady.

One Day As a Lion follows doesn't stray far from the Rage formula, though it is a bit more electro than electric (and those wacky Tom Morello guitar solos are absent). De la Rocha hasn't lost a step, spitting vitriolic verses about death, destruction, war and religion over fuzzed out keyboard lines. The only drawback is that the lyrics often get buried in the mix.

Clocking in at just 20 minutes, the release is driven by unrelenting urgency. The songs are not as instantly memorable as the highlights from the Rage catalog, mostly because they are not as repetitive. This is actually good thing, as it prevents the 5 song EP from tiring so quickly. Here's hoping De la Rocha doesn't make us wait another eight years for the next release.

One Day as a Lion - One Day as a Lion [MP3]

Rating: 3.5 of 4
For fans of: Rage Against the Machine, Rise Against