One of the great sicknesses of our time is the inability to distinguish between �contradiction� and �hypocrisy.�� People who don�t live up to the letter of their words have become a cultural obsession -- blame Bill Clinton, who drove a wide-body cruiser between �words� and �deeds�, and the media mandarins who like nothing more than to point out the hypocrisy of activist hip-hop or Jesse Ventura or Kabbalah fanatics or anyone who zealously holds a set of beliefs.� They fancy themselves the great levelers, and because they themselves stand for absolutely nothing, they think they rise above the rabble. (That�s them on the edge of the Woodstock mosh pit, looking at the bodies dripping mud, laughing.)

Still, it�s impossible not to consider the contradictions of Rage Against the Machine.� They are not, for instance, Fugazi, paragons of punk principle who minimize their contradictions by limiting themselves.� Rage dare you to spot the ironies:� They will put themselves on the Woodstock auction block then rail against the promoters� price-gouging in The New York Times. They champion pirate radio (singer Zack de la Rocha has supported Radio Clandestina, a revolution-minded L.A. station) while they court the media Godzilla (and rock the soundtrack to Godzilla).

But you�d be wrong to let the contradictions of this major-label, Top 40 band of revolutionaries turn you aside.� The Battle of Los Angeles is a great record that perfectly articulates the rap-rock youth rally they themselves spearheaded.� It�s also a much better record than anything Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, or even Rage themselves have ever made.

�It�s the end of history,� screams de la Rocha on �Sleep Now in the Fire,� with the millennial frenzy of Pat Robertson on PCP.� History is very much on his mind.� For one thing, guitar bands like Rage are no longer the lead players in pop history -- more like the busted statues scattered around a Roman bath in a bootie video.� Rage are ass-deep in denial, and God bless�em.� Denial gets you through.� Meanwhile, one listen to The Battle of Los Angels shows you that guitars have just begun to speak.

That�s if we make it past New Year�s Day.� On �War Within a Breath,� de la Rocha yearns for the dawn�s early light, fantasizing a black flag or a red star rising over Los Angeles.� Anarchy or Communism, heads we lose, tails they win -- the singer just wants to see the sky full of metal.� �Everything can change, on New Year�s Day,� de la Rocha hisses, in an angry parody of that cute-li�l Latino voice the Offspring use and U2�s old rallying cry. And on �Mic Check,� he asks �Who got the power? / .. the pig who�s free to murder one... / Or survivors who make a move and murder one back?�

Yet Rage�s call to arms falls on the ears of an audience that�s overwhelmingly white and suburban.� Their audience�s oppression is of an entirely different sort than that faced by campesinos and intifada fighters the lyrics celebrate, and if the rap-metal fans that make up a huge part of their support are thinking about armed rebellion, it�s probably the kind that happened at Columbine High rather than, say, in the jungles of Mexico.� It�s what you call a complex dialectic.

While the band loves chaos in their politics, they dig control musically, and three years off between albums seems to have only essentialized their metal.� Everything they did well before they improve on here; an irresistible tension is set up time and again between noise and rhythm. Bassist Tim Bob opens �Calm Like a Bomb� with some ill Christian McBride jazz moves, and everywhere he and drummer Brad Wilk drop hot coals before the Long March. Tom Morello showed us on the last album how a guitar can sound like turntable scratching, and this time out he makes like bagpipes, a penny whistle, and an automobile antitheft device.� He�s taken a legacy of guitar playing that seeks to break free of the material world (Hendrix to My Bloody Valentine) and strapped it into the most material of metal grooves.

But it�s MC Zack de la Rocha who�s stepped up the most.� His mic skills have always seemed suitable for agitprop, but they�ve improved markedly; his tag-team with KRS-One and the Last Emperor on Rawkus� Lyricist Lounge Volume One, �C.I.A.(Criminals in Action),� was a revelation, first because he flows like he can�t when Morello�s wagging his brontosaurus tail, and because they guy who always seems to be snarling �that�s not funny!� suddenly seemed to be having fun.� And he holds his righteous own beside Chuck D, Pharoahe Monch, the Roots� Black Thought, and others on the recent posse benefit for death-row inmate/journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, "Mumia 911."

When they stated, Rage were linked to the disaffection of grunge, but while their labelmates and pals Pearl Jam have peaked commercially, Rage keep growing.� Today they rise above the swamp of white rockers influenced by hip-hop -- I mean, it�s hard to imagine Fred Durst singing �Raza livin in La La /� Is like Gaza on the dawn of Intifada.�� Maybe their greatness shines brighter for the competition.� At Woodstock they mostly just shut up and rocked, and that was enough to burnish their image as a band of principle. For a weekend, a group that craves blood and bonfires got both, and they managed to have their $12 pizza and eat it, too.

It�s just another contradiction.� But with the economy humming along for most of the masses, here is a band making music about freeing Mumia, about designer jeans stitched by slaves, about no war-for-oil.� Unmeasurable, their impact is also undeniable.� They�ve become a great band that cuts through irony at the same time it piles up contradictions.� It�s an achievement, one that will stand even if the biggest flames they ever get to fan are at a Woodstock bonfire.