Alive in the Superunknown once more

[New Damage]

http://www.soundgardenworld.com/

Both Pearl Jam's and Chris Cornell's pages on Facebook/Twitter posted that link with the phrase below.

"The 12 year break is over & school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!"

This makes me happy.

I am a little intrigued regarding the whole Matt Cameron/Pearl Jam/Soundgarden deal though.

Edited January 1, 2010 by TheModernWay

[Sousa]

And Chris Cornell's desperate attempts to claw out some last bit of relevance continue.

[GA!]

[Kaney]

I didn't know he was ever relevant. I'm happy, but wary of this. I love Soundgarden, they're my favourite band ever but I agreed with Cornell when he said they left it at the best time, before they went downhill. Hopefully they'll go in a different direction, but yeah. Could be awesome, could be terrible.

[Sousa]

I didn't know he was ever relevant.

Eh, Audioslave from time to time, but otherwise certainly not since Soundgarden was together. I'm a big Soundgarden fan and still tear up my old copy of Badmotorfinger now and then, but I'll believe this will work when I see it work and no sooner. Cornell hasn't produced any music that I've enjoyed since... well, since Down on the Upside, frankly. Then again, I didn't expect Dinosaur Jr.'s reunion to work and damned if they aren't producing the best music they've ever put out.

So I guess it could happen.

[Benji]

Could just be touring and not producing more, does seem to be the trend these days for older groups getting back together.

[GA!]

I think Cornell's only doing this because of the reception to his last album. It wasn't that bad. About as timeless as a clock shop, but it wasn't as dreadful as people made it out to be.

[The Kraig]

I hope this ends Cornell's dire solo attempts. His first solo stuff was good. His Audioslave stuff was good. His latest album was shit. I still have it, but I have been so tempted to bin it several times.

Let's hope they haven't lost the Soundgarden magic.

[METALMAN]

Well at least it means Chris Cornell won't be doing solo music for a while. However, on the other hand, Soundgarden have reunited so it's still a bit of a rum do.

I don't mind Soundgarden. Only really know Badmotorfinger and a couple of other songs, which I mostly like despite Black Hole Sun being one of the most boring songs in existence. But yeah, not at all optimistic for this. Chris Cornell has fizzled out something terrible and I doubt that the rest of the band are in much creative vigour either. Not that they ever actually did that much.

[New Damage]

I seriously love Cornell, but it seems that Cornell minus a band just doesn't match up to Cornell with a band. I mean, the Cornell stuff where he's in a band is gold, enough to for him to be be my favourite singer of all time. But I'd only heard his solo stuff, meh.

Granted, I haven't Euphoria Morning and only heard a couple of Carry On stuff, but they just seem a bit boring, not necessarily bad. I've heard Scream all the way through and as people have said, it's not THAT bad, it's just that fact that a rock icon known for his banshee-like screaming is collaborating with some guy like Timbaland who just adds that same sound effect to each of his "beats".

Temple of the Dog, Soundgarden and to a lesser extent Audioslave are all great, even Cornell's appearance (as well as Mudhoney's Mark Arm) on Alice in Chains' "Right Turn" from Sap is mind-blowing. The only Cornell solo song that I would rate up there with the "grunge-era" stuff is "Seasons" from the Singles soundtrack, partially because it was written then.

Nevertheless, I hope they come near my way.

[KevinStorm]

I'm interested, but Cornell is always kind of iffy for me. I've never been very into Soundgarden and the only Audioslave songs I liked were Cochise and Show Me How To Live, but the guy has talent.

[Skummy]

"Euphoria Morning" is some of Cornell's best stuff, it's bloody brilliant, but he's not done anything good since. The first Audioslave album was passable, but after that, as soon as Cornell started actually writing music with them, they became dull and only had one or two half-decent songs. Even the last Soundgarden album was a bit of a let-down, and that's coming from someone who rather likes them, I grew up on Soundgarden. But while Cornell might still be able to sing, he doesn't seem to be able to write a decent song any more, and I've not really been given much hope by the other members of the band either - other than a SunnO)))/Boris track he played on, Kim Thayil's done nothing of interest since, Ben Sheppard is creatively pretty much a non-entity, so we're pretty much relying on THE DRUMMER FROM PEARL JAM to be the creative powerhouse behind this.

That's all, of course, assuming that there'll be some new material out of this. It could well be that Chris Cornell saw how his buddies in Rage Against The Machine were getting on and decided it was time he did a nostalgia reunion tour too.

[Crybaby Bunting]

I get the feeling that Chris Cornell is a good lyricist but a bad Musician

He said by the end of Audioslave that it was him who was writing all the songs. Now I understand he may have written all the lyrics, and possibly some of the chord progressions... but that doesn't make a song, it takes others to add their touch, riffs etc. onto it.

Don't get me wrong, he's a good guitarist, good vocalist... but sometimes bands need to work together to get the most out of things... else you end up with a Yngwie Malmsteen style band where one person is writing amazingly technical but musically average songs.

But yeah, it's looking VERY much like Soundgarden would be more of a The Verve style reunion (or Queen with that twat I can't be bothered remembering)

[Soundgarden9]

I'm a big fan of Soundgarden (display name), but I'm sort of iffy on this. I'm excited, but I need to see how this goes exactly for me to be have any hope of what they'll do. I feel like with the current direction that Chris Cornell was going in, it will be a really awkward situation now, much like when they toured and broke up in 1996. Also, it is disheartening when they get interviewed after their breakup about a reunion and Thayil says, "I don't see it happening," and that they had "no interest" (Cornell) in reuniting, and then they pull this out of the bag.

But, I am glad that Ben Shepherd is doing something. I love anything that guy does.

Overall, I got to have some updates on this before I start hollering around. If anything, there's a b-side album that there potentially releasing, which I am fully ecstatic about.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Soundgarden9

[New Damage]

I have now listened to "Euphoria Morning". That stuff's good. Very good.

[New Damage]

From their Lollapalooza warm-up show last night. I must say, they're on fine form there, all of them. They also did 4th of July (my very favourite song of songs at the moment) and it felt a little flat, possibly because on the studio version they're able to have Cornell singing it twice, but obviously not live.

And they're also releasing a new best of type album called 'Telephantasm', which will be released with Guitar Hero 6 before a general release. Included on the album will be a new unreleased Badmotorfinger era song called "Black Rain", rumoured to be this...

If so, I can't wait until that's out. Guitar Hero 6 is looking wonderful as it is for me (new Soundgarden, Bush, Drowning Pool, Jane's Addiction and more).

[Sousa]

Fuck Soundgarden, the real story is that Bush is back. Fuck yes, they've got a machinehead and it's better than the rest.

[New Damage]

Yeah so that clip on the Guitar Hero video is NOTHING like the Soundgarden song Black Rain. In fact sounds like a bastardised version of Anberlin's "Feel Good Drag" (also on the game). Black Rain is wayyyyy heavier. Sounding good, classic Badmotorfinger era sludge with Cornell whaling like a banshee over it.