Music Preview: New Rage Against The Machine Album Due for Summer 2011?

This has been a long time coming and now it seems that the band may actually be recording. This would no doubt be my #1 on the list for 2011 if it were confirmed by the band, but it's just not that simple. Read after the jump for details...

#3.Rage Against the Machine: It has been over a decade since the band released an album. In that time the members have participated in several projects including: Audioslave, One Day as a Lion, The Nightwatchman, Puscifer, and Street Sweeper Social Club. Audioslave was clearly the highlight of these but ALL pale in comparison to Rage. They pretty much invented rap rock  and were  the only ones who didn't suck balls while doing it. I'm looking at you Fred Durst.

Over the past few years the band has done a few summer shows here and there, but no album talks have been mentioned...until now. In an October interview with Chilean newspaper La Tercera, Zack De La Rocha's translated  response to a question about the status of RATM was:

 "...we’re all more mature and we don’t have the same sort of trouble we did 10 or 15 years ago. This is different, and we’re preparing a lot of stuff: we’re working on a new album that’ll be out next year, maybe in the summer in the US."

Great news right? Well don't trust everything you read (especially when it's translated from Spanish to English) because in the same interview Zack promised the people of Chile a four-hour show and only performed for two. What does this mean? Maybe nothing, but I'm staying optimistic that we will see Rage, System, and Soundgarden back with new albums in the next two years. Story Update from 5/4/2011.

I saw RATM on the "Battle of Los Angeles" tour and it changed my life. Everybody rushing the floor when they announced the band was one of the craziest things I've ever seen, not to mention they brought the whole place down by closing w/ "Killing in the Name".  Hearing 20,000 people yell "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" in unison 17 times in a row is something I'll never forget. I wouldn't be working in rock radio if not for the mind-blowing performance from Rage that night. Check out "Know Your Enemy" live from that very same tour...