the only good thing I can say about Audioslave is that the drum miking on ther debut was stellar

I like soundgarden but i never bothered with audioslave.couldn't be arsed.

>tfw when one of your favorite bands has a thread that hasn't been use din over a year.

So Soundgarden dropped their new single. Listen to it on King Animal :: November 13th

or on Youtube



I quite like this one, it's no top notch stuff for sure but this could've been way worse aye? They're more upbeat now, not as grungy anymore but grunge is dead, so what'd you expect?

I don't know if you're talking about the song that I heard, but their latest song was balls. Sounded like any generic radio rock song you can hear these days, just with Chris Cornell singing over it.

To me it sounded like they finished 'Never Named' from the last album. I'm half curious to know if the rest of the disc sounds like more re-finished leftovers or if there's anything actually new on there.

Soundgarden is on the frontpage of Norway's Metal Hammer Magazine!
Link

The new album was actually very solid. I would say it compares most to "Badmotorfinger" musically. A couple of things I noted:


A) There are no filler songs.

That's not to say there weren't song from this record that I didn't like. I didn't care for a Thousand Days Before or Black Saturday most notably, but it doesn't sound like there are any half-assed songs. That was my biggest problem with Down on the Upside. It had eight really good songs and a kickass outtake, which is almost all you need for a great album, but that record had 16 songs, and half of them were quite obviously subpar to the standout tracks like Pretty Noose and Zero Chance. Even Superunknown, which I consider to be the greatest grunge album, had some filler (Kickstand, even though I love that song, it sounds very unfinished). I think Down on the Upside would have been a lot better if they had just taken more time to write good songs for it, as they did for this album. I'm glad they took almost three years since announcing their reunion to make sure King Animal was as strong as it could be.

B) There are no signature songs.

Although it's not my favorite, the single "Been Away Too Long" is easily the most memorable and catchy track on the record. I'd call this a quality album, but it's completely void of any track that will define its era. Superunknown had Black Hole Sun, Fell on Black Days, Spoonman, the Day I Tried to Live, and My Wave. Down on the Upside had Pretty Noose, Burden in My Hand, and Blow Up the Outside World. Badmotorfinger had Outshined, Rusty Cage, and Jesus Christ Pose. King Animal doesn't have any song that particularly stands out all at once, or will go on to be considered a classic in their catalog, which kind of bummed me out. King Animal is very consistent in that way.

It's a good record, but it's definitely a record for the fans. Not many people who don't know much about Soundgarden are going to hear Been Away Too Long or whatever the second single and have an epiphany.

I found King Animal to be overall enjoyable...but I feel the same way about this as I do about the Smashing Pumpkin's new releases - the magic just isn't there anymore. There are some really clever riffs thrown in courtesy of Kim (especially Non-State Actor), but nothing that's immediately memorable. Even on Down On the Upside, I left the first listen with 2 or 3 songs I wanted to hit repeat on.

If they are serious about this reunion, then I look forward to them (hopefully) getting their stride back, but I'm not holding my breath.

That's exactly what I was saying, duga, about the "wow factor" in this record. The whole album is a good product, but there are no songs you have to put the record on hold to listen to again. No Black Hole Sun, no Pretty Noose. They're all strong tracks, but I wouldn't define any of them as the strongest. Taree is my favorite from the album, and not even it's on the level as the previously mentioned songs.

I think it's quite a bit better than the new Smashing Pumpkins. That album really ran together after a couple of songs. It was a real return to form for SP, but the songs were not as good as some of their earlier records, and that's all there is to it.

I actually enjoyed "King Animal" more than I did "Down on the Upside". More I listen to it, the more I dig it.