Audioslave, Astoria, London <br></br>The Droyds, Mean Fiddler, London <br></br>The Thrills, 93 Feet East, London

No more rage - it's just a heavy-metal hissy fit

When Rage Against The Machine gave me their first ever UK interview, almost a decade ago, I asked Tom Morello what kind of chainsaws and angle-grinders he used to achieve those dissonant screeching sounds. I was amazed when he told me that it was all done with his fingertips on a fretboard.

Well, if you're going to spend your youth locked indoors honing your guitar virtuosity, better to use it for impersonating heavy machinery than for impersonating Joe Satriani.

With the arguable exception of System Of A Down (with whose singer, Serj Tankian, Morello has recently launched a political group called Axis of Justice), Rage were a lone voice of political dissent on the metal scene – their official website was shut down in the aftermath of 11 September because it became a forum for some very unAmerican views. It's unfortunate that their best-known moment was a song which, if it didn't actually go "Fuck you, I won't tidy my bedroom", might as well have done, but such is the soundbite era.

In comparison, Morello's new band, Audioslave, are apolitical. Their new single may be named after Cochise, the last American Indian chieftain to surrender, but the title promises more than the lyrics ever deliver. Scour their debut album, and it's the same story: at a push, "Set It Off" can be read as a call to ignite the spark of revolution, but only if you squint. The reason for this shift is pretty straightforward: Audioslave's lyrics are written not by Morello, but by former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell.

Soundgarden were a band I never warmed to. Underneath the Seattle/grunge trappings, they were blatantly unreconstructed Seventies rock dinosaurs (I once heard a story about them getting into a huge chrome tour bus just to travel 50 yards from their hotel to the loading bay of a venue). "Jesus Christ Pose" was pretty tuff, I'll grudgingly concede, but although "Black Hole Sun" had one of the great rock videos, I far preferred the Moog Cookbook's sarcastic easy-listening version. It was never easy to take Soundgarden as easy as they took themselves.

The spirit of Soundgarden permeates Audioslave. There's a lot of tattooed muscular manflesh onstage tonight: it's all white vests and bare chests. Cornell's new spiky, mildly punky hairdo is about as convincing as the shorter haircut adopted by Jon Bon Jovi (prompted, ironically, by the threat of bands like Soundgarden): you could tell JBJ's mullet was screaming to get out, and you can tell Cornell is a longhaired Robert Plant wannabe at heart. Which fits, I guess, because Audioslave are essentially a wannabe Led Zeppelin (that succession of "-ing" words in "Cochise" is pure "Whole Lotta Love").

Audioslave are a showcase for the talents of the man Cornell refers to as "the mysterious Mister M". There is something almost nerdy about the Harvard-educated Morello's muso-mania, but the results are still undeniably impressive, if a little showy: for every solo, he's bathed in a red spotlight, while his band (basically RATM minus Zack De La Rocha) languish in a low blue glow.

It's a slight shame that, whereas 10 years ago he was pioneering a (then) thrilling mix of hip-hop and metal, Morello's latest project is such a traditional rock proposition. On the other hand, the Rage sound has now become so ubiquitous that it's become obsolete: everybody's rappy nowadays.

The Droyds are thieves, and they know that theft can be an art form. Thus far, the synthesizer five-piece are best known for what they do with other people's belongings: their Duran pastiche (and club hit) "Girls On Pills", and their remixes of the last Ladytron single.

Even their appearance seems borrowed from a variety of sources: the male singer looks like Elvis/Gary Numan, the lead keyboardist looks like a young Tin Tin Duffy, and the female singer has perfected the simultaneous tricks of looking like Pris from Bladerunner while holding a cigarette and a microphone in the same crimson-manicured hand, and making a Dutch army jacket look glamorous.

Every Droyds track is a mix-and-match of stolen goods: the riff from "Warm Leatherette" (The Normal) with the line "I'm a vampire for your love" (T.Rex), or the line "We're so pretty" (Sex Pistols) with that Fischerspooner bassline.

A dark humour underpins their avaricious aesthetic. "I'd like to state that black is the new black," "Elvis" – we'll call him that – announces (to an audience of goths), before dedicating a tune to the recently-deported-from-Cambodia Gary Glitter, and another to Jesus H Christ, Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden.

To end, a "straight" cover version: The Droyds' new single is an (even more) dispassionate version of Squeeze's "Take Me, I'm Yours". Take a look at them. But watch your pockets.

"What's the time?" the Beasties prophetically and rhetorically asked in 1986. "It's time to get ill." And unless you've got "ill" in your name in 2003, you're wasting your time. America has given us The Kills, London has given us Thrill City (or is it Kill City?), and Ireland's contribution to the thrill-kill cult are The Thrills.

Tonight's show is effectively their coming out party, and tout de Londres – a couple of Oasis blokes, every music journalist in town, er, Jo Whiley – is here (mainly chatting among themselves with their backs to the action, but that's the Fashionable East for you).

Walking on to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (geddit?), they turn out to be far from the garage rock scenesters I'd anticipated. Instead, the first song is a lovely wide-eyed-and-legless country/soul lament, the singer sounding like Robert Wyatt as he strains to hit the high notes. The rest of the set rattles along at a faster clip, with much use of Hammond, harmonica and skiffle rhythms, sometimes only a short wagon ride from Soggy Bottom Boys territory.

The Thrills will push all the buttons of those who yearn for "proper" songs played "properly", and will soon make many people very happy, while making many others' lives a misery. But Thrills? None here.

s.price@independent.co.uk