Thanks to Limp Bizkit and their legion of imitators, rap metal now gets dismissed as an evolutionary mistake, the bastard realm of repetitive two-bar guitar riffs and sledgehammering monochrome beats. But the pioneering Rage Against the Machine were always deeper than that, and this Rick Rubin-produced covers collection -- recorded on a whim while the quartet was finishing its now-delayed live album -- shows why: Not only do Rage understand the sweep of rock and rap history, but they had bold and unusual ways of tearing that history up.

From the opening wah-wah guitar that kicks Eric B. and Rakim's "Microphone Fiend" wide open, Rage make clear that this won't be a canned karaoke cakewalk: The groove enters at a bloodthirsty pitch, and vocalist Zach de la Rocha drops verses with the most agility and syncopated precision he's ever displayed. Throughout the album, the rhythm section matches de la Rocha's intensity. Rage glance at the original blueprints left by the Stooges, Minor Threat and others, but are most effective doing total rewrites -- on Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man," the minimalist beat is twisted up tight and spanked until it glows. The very act of covering such diverse works as Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," Afrika Bambaataa's "Renegades of Funk" and Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" requires a certain audacity, but Rage take things further -- executing each with the roaring, fearless spirit that's been missing in action since these songs were new. (TOM MOON -- RS 856/857)

Neil Young Road Rock, V. 1 (Reprise)

Giving Neil Young a subtle rhythm section is like giving a gorilla a Palm Pilot. On his 273rd live album, naturally titled Road Rock, V. 1, his all-star band includes bassist Duck Dunn and drummer Jim Keltner, and so what does he do? He forces them to keep up with his own patented electric thud-stomp, and the result is one of his sloppiest live albums ever. But since Neil Young is Neil Young, throwaways like this are a Zen spiritual exercise, a way of keeping his aging hippie bones loose and limber. These live tracks date from last summer's American tour, with only one new song, the awful "Fool for Your Love." But on the old stuff, Young kicks the dump in the rump. The eighteen-minute "Cowgirl in the Sand" is a riot: The band gets pitifully lost trying to follow Young until he just abandons it around the thirteen-minute mark to take off on two minutes of brain-shredding shriek guitar. The other must-hear guitar solo comes three minutes into "All Along the Watchtower," a duet with Chrissie Hynde. There's also "Peace of Mind," the old man's truest love song ever, with his wife on backing vocals. Road Rock is a goof, all right, but as Neil Young keeps proving, goofing around helps an old rock & roller stay young at heart. (ROB SHEFFIELD -- RS 856/857)

K-Ci & JoJo X (RCA)

The first two lines of brothers Cedric "K-Ci" and Joel "JoJo" Hailey's latest sex-you-up-by-numbers disc say it all: "Let's make love tonight/I'm in the mood to make love." And they hope you are, too. Backed by throbbing R&B beats, finger snaps and a mix of Spanish and wah-wah porn guitar, the bad boys of balladeering spend a majority of X on their knees. Among others, "Wanna Do You Right," "Crazy" and "If It's Going to Work" beg for you to come back, baby, while "Suicide" contemplates ending it all if you won't. By giving up production duties to a diverse group -- including Babyface and Timbaland -- the disc benefits from the classier spin of "I Can't Find the Words," the simplified "All the Things I Should Have Known," and an upbeat Tupac Shakur appearance on "Thug N U Thug N Me." Still, the guys too often shoot straight for the high-end of their R&B wail. And that can make X redundant, even for the satin sheet set. But if used correctly, you should be too busy to notice. (J.R. GRIFFIN)

Alice in Chains Live (Columbia)

A posthumous live one from the Seattle masters of heavy-catchy, and as AIC were always a vastly underrated act (would that Pearl Jam were so concise, Soundgarden so effortless), another pleasant surprise. For those only familiar with their FM radio hits, most of them are here (conspicuously absent are the poppy numbers "Heaven Beside You" and "No Excuses") and they're done more or less by note for note rote with occasional vocal gymnastics/improv from singer Layne Staley. The "album cuts" are the ones that improve from the looser settings, especially the dope fiend lament "Junkhead" and the rumbling "Again", which is more chant than song and more up-beat than the narcotic haze that permeates the rest of the disc, which spans from the band's early shows in 1990 to their final performance in 1996. While they were somewhat on the dull and static side to see them perform in person, this live record, consumed in the comfort of muscle car or home, is a nifty document from a band that made classic rock sound brand new better than anyone else has in ages. (JOHNNY ANGEL)

Memphis Bleek The Understanding (Island/Def Jam)

Not surprisingly, rapper Memphis Bleek takes the customary money-stricken route seen too often with promising lyricists. True, the sound of this once jazzy and soulful artform is rapidly changing from its past pore-raising grooves to more pushy synthetic rhythms, brilliantly displayed on the hit single "That Your Chick" featuring Jay-Z, Twista and Missy Elliot. But it's inexcusable when cuts like "Bounce Bitch," "Do My . . ." and "PYT" have you mistaking the sound over your stereo for PlayStation effects instead. All is not lost, though. Credible hard-knock convictions such as "My Mind Right (Remix)" seeing Jay-Z, H. Money Bags and Beanie Sigel join to heat up the hectic pace, as well as "We Get Low" find Bleek really representing Brooklyn's Marcy Projects. When he's mellow, either surrounded only by the smoke on "I Get High" or reflecting by himself on "In My Life," he's at his best. (MARLON REGIS)

Roger Waters In the Flesh (Columbia)

Rather than having the expected nude shot of the ex-Pink Floyd mastermind on the cover that the title implies, we get barbed wire, an eclipsed sun and a silhouette of a pig. So, you see, nothing is quite as it seems in the world of Roger Waters. This double-disc set of live tracks, on which he revisits his more lucrative run with his former band, proves it. While it's hard to spoil classic tracks like "Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Pt. 1-8" (from Wish You Were Here) or "Comfortably Numb" (from The Wall), Waters and his touring compatriots give it a fair shot. Trading subtle atmospherics for farting rhythm guitars, over-emoting gospel singers and the kind of bombast only a live show recorded in Las Vegas can provide, In the Flesh offers a cheap tribute to a man who has clearly seen better days. (AIDIN VAZIRI)

Funkmaster Flex 60 Minutes of Funk, Volume IV: The Mixtape (Loud)

The challenge of producing a good mixtape is the same as that of DJing a party: quality to get it started, consistency to keep it going. With his latest effort, 60 Minutes of Funk, Volume IV: The Mixtape, hip-hop maestro Funkmaster Flex rocks the party once again, boasting exclusive tracks by a handful of multi-platinum-selling artists and notable performances by lesser-known artists. DMX kicks things off with the radio-friendly single "Do You," but it's the following track, "I Don't Care" (featuring Jadakiss of the Lox), that gets the album moving. Eminem & D-12's psychotic diatribes on the aptly titled "Words Are Weapons" are as devilish as Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous appearance on "The Wickedest." While contributions by Capone-N-Noreaga and Ja Rule and the Murderers come forth with intensity, Ginuwine and Faith Evans smooth out the album's landscape by providing variety. Volume IV does more than assure Funk Flex is on the same level as the stars; it also proves that he keeps his ear to the street. (PAT CHARLES)

Richard Lloyd The Cover Doesn't Matter (Upsetter Music)

In his seminal role as one-half of Television's astral-projecting guitar tandem, Richard Lloyd changed the face of cerebral rock improvisation forever, without receiving so much as a single hosanna when guitarists come to worship at the altar of the instrument's high priests. Will The Cover Doesn't Matter, his first solo studio outing in more than a decade, change that? It's tough to say, but there's enough immediacy -- not to mention genuine passion -- to make one hope. Retaining the serpentine slink of his best work, Lloyd veins no-frills songs like "Raising the Serpent" and "Submarine" with razor-sharp solos that cut to the quick before retracting without warning, a rare trick indeed. Unlike former partner-in-chime Tom Verlaine, Lloyd doesn't see himself as having outgrown the parameters of rock & roll -- although he's perfectly capable of scaling the genre's walls when the mood strikes. It doesn't strike often, but that's hardly a problem, given the depth with which Lloyd's c onstantly-burrowing instrument mines the relatively narrow territory, turning up gem after sonic gem. (DAVID SPRAGUE)

Sultans Ghost Ship (Swami Records/Sympathy for the Record Industry)

Picking up a bass, taking on a new alter-ego and adopting a less-is-more methodology, Rocket From the Crypt's prolific John "Speedo" Reis becomes "Slasher" in Sultans to create stripped-down blitzkrieg bop. Rocket bassist ND (guitarist "Black Flame" here) and drummer Tony DiPrima join Reis for a twenty-one-minute, thirteen-song juggernaut that offers surprisingly complex and lasting effects for so brief a jolt. The record naturally evokes a leaner, meaner RFTC (on tracks like "Heartbreaker," "Trust No One," "Chances Are" and the punkabilly-cum-Rolling Stones cut "Put Up a Fight"), but it also calls to mind the best of essential minimalists the Ramones, the bleakness of early post-punks like Greg Sage's seminal Wipers ("[This Ain't No] Solid State") and even new wave circa Elvis Costello and the Attractions ("It's Over"). Peppered with Slasher's lyrics of violence, delinquency and anonymity, Ghost Ship is a blistering, powerful slice of underground. Don't let it sail by undetected. (MARK WOODLIEF)

The Gits Seafish Louisville (Broken Rekids)

The Gits were a rising Seattle band until one night in July 1993, when lead singer Mia Zapata was murdered by an unknown assailant. It was an ugly end for a band known for their uncompromising musical stance, a bracing alt-rock that was more melodic than grunge but just as impassioned (the band continued for a time with Joan Jett in Zapata's place, calling themselves Evil Stig). Seafish Louisville, a compilation of outtakes, live tracks and a remixed and remastered version of the band's first EP is a fitting epitaph. "Whirlwind," from an early recording session, kicks off the album and provides a great introduction to Zapata's drawling, powerful vocals, rising assuredly above the musical crash raging behind her. The live material, recorded during the filming of the Seattle scene documentary Hype!, is especially strong, with the band's philosophy nicely summed up in "Slaughter of Bruce," a rallying cry celebrating the freedom of rock & roll in the face of corporate takeovers. (GILLIAN G. GAAR)

3LW 3LW (Epic)

It's time for Destiny's Child to shove off and make room for someone younger, sleeker and with better clothes, and 3LW (a.k.a. 3 Little Women) will do nicely for now. The teenage trio's self-titled debut album hitches TLC's minimalist grooves with En Vogue's sky-scraping harmonies, nailing a formula that should prove thoroughly MTV-equipped. And just in case it doesn't, the label has invested several thousand dollars in hit-makers Full Force ('N Sync, Backstreet Boys), the Co-Stars (Sisqo, Missy Elliott) and Sean Hall (98 Degrees). The result is pleasingly harmless, with only a guest spot from rapper Nas on "I Can't Take It (No More Remix)" providing the record with any discernible fireworks. (VAZIRI)

Holger Hiller Holger Hiller (Mute)

Since leaving German post-punkers Palais Schaumburg in 1984, Holger Hiller has pursued a multidirectional solo career in electronic music, working with everything from remixes to multimedia projects. On Hiller's first release in five years, his music continues to dance down as many different paths as possible. Holger Hiller sees its namesake pairing drum-and-bass with trance keyboards ("Come"), setting classically arranged strings and horns to hard-core breakbeats ("Micki Mouse") and giving an occasional nod to Aphex Twin and his mismatched rhythmic patterns. But what's more impressive than the album's eclecticism is the diversity of actual sounds Hiller has created with his equipment, breaks so bouncy they sound like they've been filled with helium, vocals that have been squeaked out by a computer. By devoting himself to the muse of technology, Hiller has found a limitless resource for his restless musical spirit. (NINA PEARLMAN)

Grade The Embarrassing Beginning (Victory)

The previously out-of-print recordings that embody the first half of this "then and now" collection reveal the integral role that emotion has played from the outset with Ontario's hardcore quintet Grade. But this ain't no sissy emo-core, as lead throat Kyle Bishop forgoes the whining in favor of mostly indecipherable barking on material culled from 1994's Grade/Believe split CD. And it's probably just as well, as the group paints a bleak and suitably anarchistic picture on these flustered, head-splitting diatribes. Serving as a juxtaposition of just how far they've come, the band tacks on more recent, melodic nuggets like "Stolen Bikes Ride Faster" and the sunny "A Year In The Past." The band's live reading of Van Halen's "Panama" is awful, but inspired, acoustic takes of "Triumph And Tragedy" and "Seamless" make such flawed judgements nearly forgivable. (JOHN D. LUERSSEN)

Microstoria Model 3, Step 2 (Thrill Jockey)

Microstoria is Markus Popp of avant-abstract sonic reconstructionists Oval and Jan St. Werner of the breezy, technophilia-leaning German instrumentalists Mouse on Mars. Model 3, Step 2 spans the gap between each member's respective experimental opacity and adventurous accessibility and transcends both with a sense of intimate atmosphere. Microstoria unfolds digital and mechanical sounds at an organic pace that reminds the listener that there are humans working the machines and they're trying to tell a story (or at least evoke a mood) as best they can with the disparate knobs, buttons and sound-making geegaws. Model 3, Step 2 is not for the impatient or unimaginative, for Popp and St. Werner require that you bring nearly as much to the listening as they. Soundscapes for shut-in adventurers, precise, expansive ambience for rooms without a view, Model 3, Step 2 is a warm creation born of binary exactitude. (CHRIS HANDYSIDE)

The Buddyrevelles American Matador (Motorcoat)

Gimme indie rock! The Buddyrevelles make some of the best of the genre on their second album, American Matador, with a powerhouse drummer who anchors the angular guitar lines as they drift into an unresolved state, and melodies that are worth remembering (if not always memorable). Singer/guitarist Aaron Grant's placid vocals are often barely distinguishable above his own jangly din, melting instead into the twists and turns of the other instruments. That's not to say that the Buddyrevelles practice cacophony -- the elliptical guitar groove and driving bass of "I'll Take You In My Car" and the time signatures turning over on themselves on "At Least Ten Years" prove that the Wisconsin-via-Chicago trio craft their songs with meticulous attention to detail. (MEREDITH OCHS)

(December 5, 2000)