Soundgarden - Superunkown (Review: MattJ)

I've always wanted to listen to Soundgarden being a fan of other Grunge acts like Nirvana and Alice in Chains, and I'm glad Alex put it up. What I've found with Grunge is that unlike other genres one band can sound entirely different from the next - I mean Nirvana are supposed to be the model Grunge band but all the other Grunge music I've heard doesn't really sound like them at all. I suppose Grunge is just what they called Alternative Rock in the early to mid 90s.

The first thing that has to be addressed in this review is the vocals. They are superb. Everyone praised Cornell's vocals in their Audioslave reviews but I didn't particularly see what was special about them. But on Superunknown they are twice as powerful and frankly just so much better - an example of when his voice is very powerful is on tracks like Mailmain and Superunknown. Perhaps it's just that I think his voice suits this kind of music better than that of Audioslave.

The music on the album is what I'd expect of any Grunge band - nothing spectacular but very nice and probably catchy. To be honest I'm thinking more and more than Grunge is Pop Rock with a bit of distortion, although this isn't a bad thing at all. Despite that Soundgarden seems a lot more Rock than Pop and I found myself really enjoying it with head banging and the lark. I really enjoyed Soungarden's slower songs as well, like Head Down and Fell on Black Days. This shows another side of the band making us see that they aren't a one trick pony but can explore a slower and darker element of the genre.

There's not a lot that I don't like about this album - well I say not a lot but I can't think of any. The album is very long but it's OK because the tracks are all pretty good and I mean pretty good. There aren't any tracks that jump out at me and make me think "Wow, that's amazing". Hopefully I will find something when I listen to this album more and I can make this a 5/5. But for now it will have to remain a 4/5, which is by no means a bad score.

Also, sorry to go off topic but I don't think there's enough talking between authors and so I think we should hold 'music debates' on MSN or something between 2 or 3 of us and then we could post it here on the blog.