Renegades

For Rage Against The Machine it's been almost ten years of fighting the good fight of activism, anarchy and angry rock par excellence. They defined the sound of rap-metal, although their unwavering agit-rock stance has bypassed most of the new boys in the dumb Limp Bizkit skool of rap-core, who don't seem to have a political thought in their pudgy little heads.

Renegades, the last Rage Against The Machine album with Zack de la Rocha on the mic, is an odd but fitting swansong, covering rebel rap anthems like Cypress Hill's 'I Could Just Kill A Man' and rock standards of The Stooges' 'Down On The Street' and The Stones' 'Street Fighting Man'.

Rap classics like Eric B and Rakim's 'Microphone Fiend' are given the heavy riff makeover, and wear it well, although as far as the version of EPMD's 'I'm Housin' is concerned, it's a bit bizarre to hear the phrase "I'm housin'!" immediately followed by a huge fuck-off guitar crunch.

Their interpretation of Dylan's 'Maggie's Farm' is swamped in insurrectionary overtones and Zack's vocals bring a new sense of urgency to Bruce Springsteen's 'The Ghost of Tom Joad,' imparting the frustrated fury of Steinbeck's displaced Oklahoma farmer, a restless spectre surveying the human wreckage of modern society.

It's not all fierce soapbox rhetoric, though, as the biggest surprise is the singer's soft whispering take on Devo's 'Beautiful World', which transforms the sarcastic original into an eerily-moving ballad.

Despite De La Rocha's departure, the struggle goes on. The band may well carry on with a new vocalist, and a live album is due for release next year, but for now, Renegades provides a fine farewell to the Rage as we know it.