Band : Street Sweeper Social Club (Tom Morello & Boots Riley)
Album Title : Street Sweeper Social Club
Label : Cooking Vinyl
Distribution : V2 Records
Release date : September 2009
Review : CD

Street Sweeper Social Club is a rap rock supergroup, formed in Los Angeles in 2006 and consisting of Tom Morello and Boots Riley, who recently released their self-titled debut album. In case you didn’t know: Tom Morello is the guitarist whose fame we know from Rage Against The Machine (RATM), Audioslave and The Nightwatchman. Vocalist/rapper Boots Riley is known from the band The Coup, a hip hop band from Oakland. The two met at a concert and Morello, also a well-known political activist, asked the like-minded Riley if he was interested in forming a band to play anthems for the revolution. Result: Street Sweeper Social Club.

And yes indeed, the music of Street Sweeper Social Club sounds revolutionary. Indispensable ingredients are the typical militant riffs of Tom Morello and the funky sparkling rhymes of Boots Riley (who’s way of singing is a lot smoother than the aggressive voice of RATM-singer Zack de la Rocha). This all leads to an exciting and energetic sound, where the influence of RATM is not that far away.“Street Sweeper Social Club” contains 11 songs and has a playing time of 39 minutes. Highlights of the album are the opening track “Fight! Smash! Win!”, the first single “100 Little Curses”, “The Squeeze”, “Somewhere In The World It’s Midnight”, “Shock You Again”, “Megablast” and “Nobody Moves Til We Say Go”.

Street Sweeper Social Club already played as the opening act for Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction on their tour across the USA in May and June 2009. And now we can only hope that Street Sweeper Social Club will come play some live shows in Europe. I’ll be on the front row.

90/100

Erik.