You may know Tom Morello best for his bone-crushing guitar riffs, which laid down the perfect sonic landscape for Zach De La Rocha's rhymes, back when the two headed political hard-rock outfit Rage Against the Machine (by the way, since going solo, De La Rocha still hasn't found a suitable replacement). Then again, you may know Morello for his later work as the guitar whiz for Audioslave which featured lead vocalist Chris Cornell (by the way, from what I've heard of Chris Cornell's new solo album, minus Morello and company, the sound could best be described as generic, ball-less bland-rock). The point is, when most people think of Tom Morello, they probably think of a hard-rock guitar guru, capable of summoning ingenius, imaginative sounds from his amplified ax. He wouldn't be the first name to pop into many people's minds when thinking about thoughtful, folky singer-songwriters. That all may change with the emergence of Morello's latest project The Nightwatchmen, which finds him waxing metaphorical (and as always, political) with acoustic guitar in tow. The title of the new Nightwatchman album, One Man Revolution, sums things up perfectly. Like Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, Morello has decided to ditch the the grandiose accompaniments of arena-rock stardom and make an album of deep, purposeful folk-rock. Check out the first single "The Road I Must Travel." The first time I heard it, I had trouble believing that it was really Morello who had made this understated, Irish folk tune. This is indeed another side of Tom Morello, and it may be the best one yet.
The Nightwatchman - "The Road I Must Travel" mp3
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