A Fitting End for This Phase of the Rock Revolution

Raging against the dying of this particular light, the lame-duck rock revolutionaries come up with an appropriate close to this chapter in their history, which ended with the recent departure of singer Zack de la Rocha. “Renegades” is a collection of songs that have inspired the Los Angeles rabble-rousers, and while it can be a stretch to go from Eric B & Rakim to Bruce Springsteen to Devo to the MC5, they all feed the Rage formula of brutal, metal-edged hip-hop rock and radical polemics.

Guitarist Tom Morello and the rhythm section of Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk mount their assault with customary force and invention, wrenching the original songs into the Rage template, while De la Rocha jumps confidently from punk blowtorch on Minor Threat’s anthem “In My Eyes” to expressive rapper on a set of “golden age” hip-hop songs from Eric B & Rakim, Afrika Bambaataa and EPMD.

The most radical reworkings are Devo’s “Beautiful World,” transformed from new wave power pop into eerie ballad, and Springsteen’s ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad.”

It might have been nice for this Rage lineup to exit with a statement of its own, but it’s hard to complain about these rocking revisits to the MC5 and the Stooges, and to an epochal version of “Maggie’s Farm” that, in retrospect, might be heard as De la Rocha’s own declaration of independence.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent). The albums are due in stores Tuesday.