Soundgarden - Ultramega OK

Soundgarden released their first full length album in 1988.  It's mainly unremarkable stuff, lots of Led Zeppelin-channelling metal with the Chris Cornell seeking (and finding) his voice over the top of it.  All Your Lies isn't a million miles off the kind of grunge Green River were playing around this time.  Mood for Trouble is more complex, evoking late period Zeppelin while incessant Mace is more akin to Dazed and Confused.

There are two standouts.  Opening track Flower is built on a low, grinding riff and rocks to good effect, its clattering Zep-y rhythm plots the way towards Spoonman amongst others.  The slow trudge of Beyond the Wheel gives Cornell the opportunity to show his range, from the opening foreboding growl to full-on, head-back roar over more grinding riffs.  They would get better than this but interesting to see where they started. 

Soundgarden - Screaming Life

Soundgarden released their debut EP in late 1987, Screaming Life.  It's noteworthy for having two strong heavy rockers on it.  Opening track Hunted Down, has a low slung, menacing riff through it.  Chris Cornell hadn't quite found his voice at this point, he sings this one in a more generic late 80s metal voice.  It's not a particularly Soundgarden-y track, you could imagine it being performed by Alice In Chains.  A lot of the rest of the EP is, while not terrible, not particularly noteworthy.  Songs like Entering and Tears To Forget are kind of scream-y metal, while Little Joe tries to mix that metal with funk with predictably tedious results.  The other real keeper here is Nothing To Say.  Much slower than anything else here, it has a dead-slow-yet-heavy-as-fuck riff that powers through the song.  Here Cornell pushes his singing register to its upper limit and the track is pretty effective.

Soundgarden - Down On The Upside

Soundgarden released Down On The Upside in 1996, just before the band went on hiatus for a number of years.  This album doesn't get the credit that Badmotorfinger and Superunknown get, possibly because there are 16 songs on it, a lot for anyone to digest. 

Opening with the driving rock one-two of Pretty Noose and Rhinosaur, Chris Cornell is on fine voice, backed up by Kim Thayil's bruising riffs.  And it's not just bluster here: Cornell exhibits his fine lower register croon on Zero Chance.  The nihilistic Blow Up the Outside World isn't a million miles away from Black Hole Sun, while Burden In My Hand is arguably the strongest track here.  Aided by a driving set of guitar riffs, it's a gloriously downbeat anthem to failure. 

The band embrace many different styles here.  The punk-as-fuck Ty Cobb barrels along at speed with a chorus of "hard headed fuck you all".  On the other hand, Applebite has some almost post-rock, bleak guitar licks, with Cornell's vocal heavily distorted.  

There is a lot of material here to digest, and towards the end of the album there are fewer standouts.  Overfloater has a real late-period Led Zeppelin vibe to it, reminiscent of No Quarter.  Final track Boot Camp is almost like an elegy for the band, with slow, heavy, mournful riffs and Cornell singing lyrics ripe for analysis: "must obey the rules... no staring at the clouds... I must contain my views... there must be something good far away from here".  It's a stark ending to an essential Soundgarden release. 

Chris Cornell – A Perspective

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/05/18/chris-cornell-a-perspective/

Album Review: Screaming Trees – Uncle Anesthesia

The Screaming Trees released their first album on Epic records in 1991, right before what became known as ‘grunge’ became a seriously big noise. But this band were more grunge by association with the pacific Northwest, than their actual sound. The album initially felt disappointing, with many of the songs lost in Terry Date and Chris Cornell’s somewhat muddy production. It also saw the final stage of the Trees’ transition from a punky sound to a more classic rock sound.

Opening song Beyond This Horizon doesn’t really work, Mark Lanegan’s developing croon failing to rescue the track from sounding like a refugee from The Cult’s Sonic Temple album. Though drummer Mark Pickerel, on his final album with Screaming Trees, gives a fine performance here.

Bed of Roses fairs much better with Gary Lee Conner’s jangly guitars fitting in well to the overall heavy sound, though there is way too much reverb on Lanegan’s voice. The title track is probably one of the best here, Conner’s heavily wah-wahed (grammar?) guitar riff rocks hard and Lanegan is in fine voice, his voice rising from a deep croon about “dusted preacher in the dark” to screaming unintelligible lyrics over the guitar solo.

Many of the songs take a relatively simple chord progression and layer them with heavy, yet jangly guitars and Lanegan’s wonderful voice (Caught Between, Alice Said), and one of these, Lay Your Head Down, contains a wonderfully weedy recorder solo from Chris Cornell amid the raging guitars!

There are some fine slower tracks here also. Disappearing finds Lanegan singing at the top of his register over a descending melody featuring a trumpet, while final track Closer builds from a sparse opening to a slow anthem, leaving plenty of room for another fine Lanegan vocal.

They would go on to arguably greater heights with Sweet Oblivion and Dust but this often overlooked album is a strong sounding album, albeit with slightly less memorable songs than subsequent albums. It also bears witness to the maturing of Mark Lanegan’s voice to the powerful instrument that it has become.

Album Review: Soundgarden – Superunknown

Forget the joke figure that Chris Cornell turned himself into. Back in 1994, Soundgarden with Cornell on lead vocals released their masterpiece. He was one of the great grunge voices of the era. His voice soared over the bludgeoning, guttural riffs of Kim Thayil, especially on this album.

Previous albums had impressed, but Superunknown was a bold statement. 70 minutes and 15 diverse tracks was quite a lot to take in. Were they aiming for a White Album of grunge, maybe? The bottom line with this album is it is full of great, heavy songs, many of which were quite anthemic, and a lot of it is more metal than grunge.

Fell On Black Days, starts with a great, driving low riff and a superb vocal from Cornell. Mailman, is heavier, almost draggier (in a good way), as Cornell sings about “heading for the bottom”. The title track follows which races along at breakneck speed, sounding enormous. Thayil plays not one but 2 guitar riffs and Cornell belts out the lyrics as if his life depended on it.

There is room for moodier introspection (with a degree of heaviness) on tracks like Head Down, The Day I Tried To Live, both of which feature unusual, exciting chord progressions. Along similar lines Black Hole Sun made a huge impression on MTV, being both a moody anthem, and being radio-friendly.

At the opposite end of the spectrum Spoonman is a heavy anthem featuring jackhammer drums, rampaging riffs and a spoon solo (!) in the middle (failed to start a musical trend), while Kickstand is a short, sharp, punky shock to the system.

On Half they try their hand at Eastern stylings while 4th of July drags a little on sludgier than sludgy riffs, but in the main the ten tonne, 20 metres below sea-level guitar riffs and vocal pyrotechnics win the day here. It’s one of the essential albums of the grunge era.