The Nightwatchman Albums (2)
What The Critics Say
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello returns to the singer/songwriter alter ego he calls the Nightwatchman for 2008's The Fabled City. It needs to be said from the jump that this album stands in radical contrast to the skeletal One Man Revolution issued in 2007. Morello and producer Brendan O'Brien (who has been working with Bruce Springsteen since The Rising) decided on something more ornate than just guitar and voice, because these songs warrant it. Morello is much more a storyteller here: he offers tales of ordinary people trying to make it through another day in America. No heady platitudes, no sloganeering in the refrains, just small narratives that break outside the bounds of song and enter the world. As such Morello has succeeded in growing as a multi-dimensional songwriter and as a singer. These songs, though directly narrated, are as political as on his preceding album, but in a different way: these stories are the narratives of people we know, and often, have been. His America is the one that exists on city streets and in quiet suburbs, in malls and on country roads. The relationship between Morello and O'Brien is mutually empathic, nearly symbiotic. O'Brien resists his grander schemes in favor of organic approaches: some songs have small drum kits, others have a cello or B-3, and some have pedal steel guitars. The tempos and characters shift and change, as do O'Brien's textures. The title track with its big acoustic guitars, drum kit, and bassline ushers the album in with urgency: "Me and Javi /Shouted slogans in Spanish/Like it was our world to win/Then they moved the plant down to Ojeda/Time to bite your tongue again." Later, "an angel sad and old" who lives in an alley behind a market sings for a dollar. Morello's acoustic and the bass get fuzzed up for "Whatever It Takes," along with an urgent rhythmic pulse offering a first person narrative about a soldier who struggles as a proxy and an ally against despair, defeat, and disappearance. On "Lazarus on Down" a nylon-string guitar and a cello usher in the story of the raised biblical character abandoned and alone in Bethany; it features backing vocals by Serj Tankian. "Saint Isabelle" makes an appearance on the song named for her. Fueled by a harmonica, massive acoustic guitars, and a fast tempo, it feels more the like the Pogues doing a reel -- especially with the shouting chorus. She is a fragile and weary saint the narrator intercedes for; he prays for her as she does for his characters. "The Iron Wheel" finds Shooter Jennings lending his vocal to Morello's in a warning not to allow yourself to be crushed by life's challenges or submit blindly to authorities who are slaves to the same process. This is the first political album of 2008 where the people have a voice because the Nightwatchman keeps no critical or journalistic distance. Instead, with infectious melodies and inviting narratives, he invites us to join in, to acknowledge we are not separate from him, his characters, or their stories. With The Fabled City, Morello's growth as a topical songwriter is enormous; he's brought the singer/songwriter into a cultural discussion, a dialogue, where we can dialogue not only about characters (who are treated with dignity as speaking subjects, not merely as objects to hang a tune on) and their struggles, but also with popular music again, as a ready tool for awareness of the world around us. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
In the space between Chris Cornell leaving Audioslave and Rage Against the Machine reuniting, Tom Morello released a solo album under the name the Nightwatchman. One Man Revolution, as it's called, is comprised of socially and politically critical acoustic folk songs, some of which were written as early as 2003 (including the first single, "The Road I Must Travel"), when Morello first began performing alone. These are musically simple pieces, borrowing from early Dylan and Springsteen, where two or three strummed chords are all that are needed to properly display the stories told. The melodies, like many folk melodies, are familiar ("Let Freedom Ring" even sounds an awful lot like "Wayfaring Stranger" at times), but Morello's not aiming for intricacy and innovation here. Instead, he's attempting to be, and succeeding at being, to quote Rage, a "Voice for the Voiceless." He's concerned with the circumstances of others, of the downtrodden and the under-represented, of a general uprising of the oppressed, and so his words focus on this, on the characters he creates. His lyrics aren't overly complicated -- simple rhyme-scheme and imagery dominate -- but they're highly detailed and affective because of it. He's not trying to give in-depth commentary on globalization or terrorism; rather, he concentrates on the effects these things have on normal citizens, the factory workers, the young soldiers, the teachers. Morello's is a land of simple metaphors, nearly Manichean, where dark is bad and light is good ("We pray the sun will come up," he sings in "California's Dark," and this sentiment is echoed frequently throughout the rest of the album). But this doesn't mean that he makes everything seem clear-cut, with clean designations between right and wrong. Sometimes, like in "Battle Hymns" and "The Garden of Gethsemane," Morello sings from the perspective of the antagonist, the "reaper, executioner/Hangman, judge, and the law," the man who "saw things [he] should not see." It's not that he's espousing ambiguity -- there's certainly a strong and sure moral compass guiding him here -- but he understands that the darker side exists. Perhaps because of this, this acknowledgement of the gray area, One Man Revolution isn't as full of spitfire and indignation as one might imagine. Yes, Morello can get angry, and yes, he sometimes growls, but he's also compassionate and hopeful and energetic; he's showing off the blue-collar ethic he and many folksingers before him have championed and cherished, advocating for change, and maybe because he isn't screaming, his voice is all the more clearly heard. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide
