Tom Morello’s ‘The Atlas Underground Fire’ Leaves Much to be Desired (ALBUM REVIEW)

The Atlas Underground Fire, a follow up to Morello’s 2018 solo/collaboration album, The Atlas Underground, continues the same path Morello has been following more or less since Audioslave: Pairing the guitarist with other musicians showcasing the diversity of his style. And while no doubt this is a fact that has been proven time and time again. From six-stringed DJ for Rage Against the Machine to arena rock guitar god with Audioslave to the acoustic/folk rebel who plays as The Nightwatchman, Morello has more than proven his genre bonafides over the course of his decades-long career. Anyone who can hold his own on tracks with Primus and Johnny Cash, it seems to me, has more than proven themselves. Which is, perhaps, the biggest reason why this record is so disappointing.

Like its immediate predecessor, The Atlas Underground Fire, is a collaborative album, throwing the guitarist with artists across a spectrum of genres. The record pairs Morello with everyone from Chris Stapleton to Phantogram to Damian Marley. On paper, this cross section of artists should make for an interesting album. Somehow, it does not. When it works, it works in fits in and starts. Great ideas are buried in a wasteland of overproduction, which feels weird for an album Morello started by recording with his iPhone. And yet track after track finds itself so inundated by the ideas it’s forced to carry that can’t hold itself any longer.

This is an album in desperate search of identity. Rather than sounding like a Tom Morello album, it feels like a compilation of tracks on which Tom Morello appears. The lack unity makes The Atlas Underground Fire an often tedious affair. One that’s full of good intention, granted, but also one that never quite makes it to something worth listening to.

There’s a kind of “throw it at the wall” approach to the record that shows itself early into “Harlem Hellfighter,” the album’s opening, two-minute long instrumental jam. One moment the song is emblematic of the kind of solos on which Morello made his name with Rage Against the Machine, the next it’s a weird amalgam of EDM and pop production that takes away from any groove that might have been building. This is a problem that runs throughout The Atlas Underground Fire, and one that gets more apparent as the album progresses.

The first collaboration is a remarkably uninspired take on “Highway to Hell” featuring Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder. Intended as something of a gauntlet throwdown, it comes off more as a rote cover from a jam session with friends. It adds nothing more than novelty to a song that doesn’t particularly need it. While it’s hard to deny that the song kinda jams, that isn’t saying much for “Highway to Hell,” as its jamability has been well-documented now for over four decades.

The feeling of novelty is never far removed from any of the album’s tracks, making it hard to take anything too seriously. Following “Highway to Hell” is “Let’s Get This Party Started,” featuring Bring Me the Horizon, a track which feels like the one single that got national play for Limp Bizkit opening artist circa 2000. Even with Morello laying down a slick groove and some tricky soloing, it’s difficult to get over how embarrassed we’d be admitting we used to like this song if it had been released 20 years ago.

Even tracks like “The Achilles List” with Damian Marley, which sounds like an incredible collab, never manages to become anything equal to the sum of its parts. Here, as it is elsewhere throughout the record, Morello’s guitar often becomes little more than noise in the din, indistinguishable from the noodling of the production. What should have been a showcase of Morello, instead becomes an effort in shoehorning Morello in.

But, more than anything, the album is simply boring. None of Morello’s solos feel particularly inspired. None of his grooves get enough room to breathe. None of his jams particularly rock. A bad album is one thing, but The Atlas Underground Fire never really gives you any reason to talk about it again, positively or negatively. Which is disappointing for a player known for innovative techniques and a catalogue of mind-bending solos to his credit. This is a muddled mess, showcasing very little of what it was we ever loved about Morello as a guitars.