Soundgarden

I still would go see them for Kim tho'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tkrMIGTStc

Soundgarden to record a new album...
http://www.spinner.ca/2011/02/16/soundgarden-new-album/

nooooooooooooooo

I would completely and 100% endorse this.

That is, if time travel were an option and we could get pre-1994 Chris Cornell in to do vocals.

Ah, could be ok. If we're talking about reunited alt rock bands from my youth I'd much rather it were Faith No More though.

^ yes!

I think it's great they're recording again. I want to hear what great new riffs Kim has in store for us.

I mean, how bad can this really be? They sounded okay to me on their reunion gig.

yeah, seriously. obviously i'm going to be cautiously optimistic until i hear anything, but i feel like Soundgarden has as good or better a chance as any of their peers of making a good album today -- also it's not like Cornell would be doing anything better on his own and the other guys mostly haven't had very productive creative outlets in a while, maybe they could really use that collaborative spark again.

also i'm psyched for the live album they're releasing next month that was recorded in '96, saw them at Lollapalooza that year and it was a killer set

i dunno. cornell really hasn't been on his game since well... 1996. his first solo record was alright, though his lyrics have really taken a dive over the years into this weird superficiality i didn't think was possible. the fact that the other guys haven't been up to much either (aside from cameron) also makes me cautious.

i just hate when bands shit on their legacies. jane's addiction and smashing pumpkins have dragged their good names through the muck, and for what? their hearts might be in the right place, but there's nothing worse about a band that doesn't know when to call it quits.

there are probably better examples of this, but i think alice in chains have come probably the closest to releasing a record that is consistent with their older records. they toured for years prior to even stepping into a studio.

with a new singer though! disgusting they still use the AIC name

i disagree. cantrell was always the main songwriter in that band, and his vocals always had a strong presence on the older records as well. layne stayley was certainly a significant part, but not to the same extent as other lead singers in other bands. plus, the new singer's voice wasn't even very high in the mix on the new record. blasphemy or not, after almost ten years they were still able to make an "alice in chains" record without sounding like some sort of shitty parody or caricature.

i've made this argument on ILM before, but i think a lot of music fans invest far too much importance in breakups as a convenient narrative that tells them when the door is shut on a band making music or doing anything that matters to their legacy, far beyond simple cynicism about bands reuniting for money or whatever. if guys who made great music together once wanna take a break from that for a while, and then give it a try again, let 'em. if it sucks, i'll file that album away and keep listening to Superunknown, no skin off my back.

I have never heard the new AIC and don't ever care to either. I wanna hear the new Soundgarden.

I'm eating a tuna sandwich

i've made this argument on ILM before, but i think a lot of music fans invest far too much importance in breakups as a convenient narrative that tells them when the door is shut on a band making music or doing anything that matters to their legacy, far beyond simple cynicism about bands reuniting for money or whatever. if guys who made great music together once wanna take a break from that for a while, and then give it a try again, let 'em. if it sucks, i'll file that album away and keep listening to Superunknown, no skin off my back.

― tellysavalas (some dude), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:52 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

true enough. i'm excited about the whole reunion, don't get me wrong, but just cautious because of how fast it seems to have happened. it's hard to not be worried about something i know and love, but you're right.

i guess compared to AIC touring for 4 years before dropping a new album it's fast, but i feel like Soundgarden's been feeling this out pretty patiently and it seems like they didn't even start to give any indications of a new album until they took a while to try working on new songs and make sure they wanted to take the plunge, so hopefully they know what they're doing.

I'm actually looking forward to the new Soundgarden studio disc. I like their first three albums (don't like Superunknown or Down On The Upside, though) and I like a lot of the first Audioslave album and a few songs on the ones after - I don't think Cornell's lost much vocal power at all, if any.

i thought the song they did on conan was pretty good too

I think I'm looking forward more to this than the new Radiohead.

i've made this argument on ILM before, but i think a lot of music fans invest far too much importance in breakups as a convenient narrative that tells them when the door is shut on a band making music or doing anything that matters to their legacy, far beyond simple cynicism about bands reuniting for money or whatever. if guys who made great music together once wanna take a break from that for a while, and then give it a try again, let 'em. if it sucks, i'll file that album away and keep listening to Superunknown, no skin off my back.

― tellysavalas (some dude), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:52 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is way otm especially as it becomes less and less possible to make a living from music--i tend to treat all "breakup news" as "plan on an extended 3-10 year break" now

new song:

http://www.kisw.com/pages/12721576.php

a little bland but not bad, Thayil ripping into one of those instantly identifiable solos is what makes it. the real test will be how much they let loose on the album tracks.

yeah. as this is a song made for a blockbuster film, i'm not going to be too hard on it. looking at that tracklisting, they sure are keeping interesting company...

well, it starts off sounding like soundgarden, before taking a detour into californication (bullshit), though i do like the halfway point it eventually settle into. and yeah, thayill is baddass for the last minute or so.

that soundtrack list kind of makes me cringe.

"kind of"

I think I'm going to wait for the album before I pass any kind of judgement. It's difficult to say how quickly they knocked this one together.

we're all hoping they knocked that one together real quickly, aren't we?

It ain't no 'Loud Love' unf.

Soundgarden have a new album out next week?

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2012/09/Soundgarden-King-Animal-608x608.jpg

listening to the first single "Been Away Too Long" as it sounds good, not great. or what others have said up-thread.

I've heard a couple of tracks and I'm still not feeling it. Cornell's vox sound really ragged and weird.

but Bee OK otm, its sounds good, just not great.

i think the full album is pretty great. its what the album after down on the upside would always have sounded like imho. good and psychedelic.

playing live on BBC 2 tonight - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nw95g

XP - Stevie, I noticed your review and was glad to see the word psychedelic, are there any tracks in the same ballpark as She Likes Surprises or Switch Opens?

more a darker, heavier psych than 'she likes surprises', but lots of lovely complex, karmic kim thayil guitar stuffs. and cornell's in fine, fine voice.

I'm liking this a lot more than I expected to, four tracks in anyway. Nothing to make me cringe like 'Live to Rise' so far.

Yeah, Live To Rise is awful, and made me fear the worst.

Listened to the whole thing on the train this morning. The only songs I remember after a single play-through are the first two (which have been streaming) and the last one. And the first two sound more like Chickenfoot songs than Soundgarden songs, mostly due to generic hard-rock riffage and Cornell's vocals having degenerated into a Sammy Hagar-ish gravelly howl. But later in the album, he seems to recover his range somewhat.

Weird trivia note: This is the first Soundgarden studio album not to have a band photo on the cover.

i could never figure out if the weird distorted face on the Superunknown cover was Cornell or not

"Non-State Actor" is the first leak from the new one that i've found encouraging at all. curious to see the writing credits, sounds like it could be a Ben Shepherd joint.

This is an unmemorable dud of a record. I know I shouldn't have expected anything else, but I had hopes. It's not a shamefully horrific album, but it is a blandly sad one.

it's so strange because i don't know why they would do this and not go all in creatively. it's not like being the most accessible Soundgarden they could be means a fraction of what it did commercially in the '90s, they may as well play to the base.

Tracks I've heard are slightly on the bland side. Better than AIC's comeback at least.

AIC did better than anyone could've expected given the personnel handicap though!

Yeah, despite Cantrell being the principal song writer it really proved how vital Layne was to the band.

it's so strange because i don't know why they would do this and not go all in creatively.

Probably because they're doing it for the money, and their label wanted something that can play on the radio. They could play to the base, sure, but Soundgarden got forgotten pretty quickly and it seems like they were only rediscovered by doom metal dudes over the past few years. So some base. Their market today, as far as their record label bosses is concerned, is pretty much dad rock.

That's the position I'm taking, anyway, and it doesn't sound nearly as disappointing through that filter.