Audioslave: Brixton Academy, London

IN THEORY, the combination of broodingly intense rock frontman Chris Cornell, formerly of grunge titans Soundgarden, and the pulverisingly powerful core members of rock-rap radicals Rage Against the Machine should have resulted in some explosive musical chemistry. But to judge by the band's solid yet unchallenging eponymous debut album, this experiment seems to have steered both parties towards a conservative fudge, settling for the generic middle ground between them rather than the stylistic extremes which once made them distinctive.