6. Rage Against The Machine - Sleep Now In The Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI It seems we're never going to get another Rage album, with the nearest thing to anything featuring distortion in the near future being Tom Morello's next solo album. However as was proved when Morello joined Rise Against for a tour a couple years back, only to bust out this Godzilla-felling riff; people lose their goddamn minds when these opening chords come in. The icing on the cake of course comes from Zack de la Rocha's lung-draining scream - a pugnacious roar that back when the band were in full swing signified all anarchy to befell whatever block radius they were operating in. As Morello noted when being interviewed by Guitar World Magazine, he knew when laying this one down with his little acoustic far before the studio version would come about, that it was going to be absolutely world-slaying. AC/DC's Brian Johnson said that the hardest riffs to write are the most simplistic ones, and it's a testament to that mentality that amongst a swathe of more elaborately-composed pieces, this piece from 1999 hasn't aged a day.