### Soundgarden: Down on the upside

#### 14/01/11 || Daemonomania

Soundgarden were certainly contenders for the flannelly grunge crown in their day. Why they bothered to reunite now is a mystery. No wait, I solved it: $$$. Kim Thayil was tired of working at Burger King. Chris Cornell was tired of wearing last month’s fashions and getting songs that few cared about from his solo career stolen by American Idol contestants (ignore that the fucken song was a cover already). The rest of the dudes, well, who cares what they were doing recently? Not me. Probably not them.

So let’s flash back to 14 years ago. “Down on IG’s Mom’s Wide” was not well-received and marks the end of Svndgarten’s career. A career that had been a journey from the foundations of a genre to ruling the roost as its standardbearers. Far from their punky, Zeppy roots had these Seattle lads ventured – far into the land of radio-ready alternative rock from which none return. While the singles like “Pretty noose”, “Burden in my hand” and “Blow up the outside world” did dump on the face of most airwave fodder in 1996, they certainly lacked the experimental feel of much from “Superunknown” and the metallic content from “Badmotorfinger”. Any hint of earlier stuff…long gone. The only song that tries to be wacky at all here is “Ty Cobb”. All the swearing was funny in my early teen years. Not so much after the Daemo Command Unit (my voice) stopped cracking.

Positives are a sparkling production, better-than-average radio tunes, and a couple of darker tracks like the heavy “Rhinosaur” and the industrially-tinged “Never the machine forever”. Which is the only song that stands out in a fly-covered pile of filler characterizing the back half of DotU. Most of the hour plus running time is devoted to utter boredom. Not a strong effort to put ze Soundbaby to bed, gang. Maybe that’s why they reunited – to release one more completely balls-to-the-wall epic psychemetalligrungic masterpiece. Yeah, yeah fuckin’ right. And I’m destined to win the lottery and become partners in a salmon farm with Ian Anderson.

- Information
- Released: 1996
- Label: A&M
- Website: www.soundgardenworld.com
- Band
- Chris Cornell: vocals, guitars
- Kim Thayil: guitars
- Ben Shepherd: bass
- Matt Cameron: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Pretty Noose
- 02. Rhinosaur
- 03. Zero Chance
- 04. Dusty
- 05. Ty Cobb
- 06. Blow Up the Outside World
- 07. Burden In My Hand
- 08. Never Named
- 09. Applebite
- 10. Never the Machine Forever
- 11. Tighter & Tighter
- 12. No Attention
- 13. Switch Opens
- 14. Overfloater
- 15. An Unkind
- 16. Boot Camp