This album is a document of one man with an acoustic guitar and a more than a few axes to grind. He looks more like a shady drug dealer than a rock star and, even though he's from Rhode Island, he takes his stage name from the uprisings in 1967 which were sparked by poverty and racial tensions.
What the oppressed call a rebellion is usually called a riot by the oppressors and , by choosing this alter ego, he is setting out his stall on the side of the underdog - those who are not life's natural winners .
This is made explicit on the album's closing track (New Orleans) which charts the US government's inept response to the devastation by Hurricane Katrina. Told from the point of view of one of the citizens the resigned conclusion is that "it's riot or rebellion and I'm not sure we get to choose".
In 'The Rabbit' he sings that "nature's law is to be free" but the message of Detroit Rebellion's songs is that peace, freedom and justice is not a gift but can only achieved after struggle; above all when individuals learn to question authority.
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Fundamentally the central theme comes down to how we come to define the truth. For instance, in 'Misery' he mocks the notion of 'reality' being a TV show while in 'War Crimes' he asserts that official channels never tell what really happens in conflicts.
The conclusion is that you have to make the effort to distinguish fact from fiction and truth from propoganda. This means getting your hands dirty : "my lord, to be refined we got to be tested" ('Step into the Fire') and "the peace that we seek is measured by how it's achieved" (The Rabbit).
His songs are short and direct - mostly just two or three minutes long and , while I approve of the man's sentiments, the no frills, no overdubs approach means that, even though the album's playing time is only 40 minutes, the preachy style feels a bit like listening to a sermon that goes on a little too long.
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