Everything on this album is powerful - both lyrically and musically. The power riffing of "Vietnow" reminds me of an old Zeppelin tune called "The Wanton Song" (check it out), and "Bulls On Parade" has that classic "wah-wah" break - a sample of which recently found its way to becoming my new mobile phone ring-tone. Tom Morello appears to be in his element on this album, extracting noises from the guitar that sound like they were generated by a synthesizer ("People of the Sun", "Year of Tha Boomerang") - despite the band's seemingly anti-synth message on the album sleeve, which declares: "all sounds on this album made by guitar, bass, drums & vocals".
Other highlights are "Revolver", with its slow build-up prefacing an awesomely aggressive riff, and the relentless "Tire Me" - the desperation in Zack de la Rocha's voice all too evident as he belts out the line "We're already dead!".
When I eventually saw the band live in 2008 on the Big Day Out Tour, they played about five tracks from this album, which I took as my own personal reward for having waited 12 long years to get to one of their gigs. It ended up being probably the best live show I've ever seen.
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