From the first strummed notes on “Fight! Smash! Win” that begins Street Sweeper Social Club’s 39-minute debut it’s clear Nightwatchman Tom Morello is back at his day job bringing his trademark funk/rock, electric guitar-fueled rage to the masses. Boots Riley, formerly of Oakland’s political hip-hop band The Coup, is Morello’s co-conspirator, singing and co-writing all songs. Galactic’s Stanton Moore joins them on drums and Morello plays bass as well.
It’s impossible for Morello to plug in and lay down blistering guitar licks under political raps, which he refers to in interviews as “revolutionary party jams,” and not have it compared to his former band Rage Against The Machine. The topics and subjects naturally come from the left, but Riley doesn’t sing/rap with the level of anger that Zack de la Rocha used to furiously purge from his system. Nor does he write lyrics as well and this is where the album comes up short because it doesn’t seem to have any serious direction for the anger to head.
“100 Little Curses” has funny rhymes with its amusing castigation against the rich, but it’s just a wish list of potential bad things happenings, and doesn’t really get into why it’s bad for someone to rich. “The Oath” finds Morello laying down a sweet groove and Riley’s rhymes flow over it, but the song stumbles hard with its dopey chorus, as he constantly repeats “Muthafuckas!” too often throughout. “Promenade” is “a new kinda squaredance rap” supported by a fat bass and angelic background vocals, but talk of the FBI dying or us is likely a choice I doubt the vast majority of listeners will have to make.
That said, there are plenty of some good rhymes, certainly the partying college crowd will enjoy “stoner throw your flickers up/…drunks throw your liquor up.” And on “Clap For The Killers” Riley talks about who the real criminals are and “they ain’t on TV getting arrested” and Scorsese’s “lens never looks at” them, but these moments are too few and far between.
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