Rock, Metal

Soundgarden - King Animal (2012)

2012-11-26T17:13:56Z

Soundgarden - King Animal (2012)


01 – Been Away Too Long
02 – Non-State Actor
03 – By Crooked Steps
04 – A Thousand Days Before
05 – Blood On The Valley Floor
06 – Bones Of Birds
07 – Taree
08 – Attrition
09 – Black Saturday
10 – Halfway There
11 – Worse Dreams
12 – Eyelid’s Mouth
13 – Rowing
14 – Worse Dreams (Demo)
15 – Black Saturday (Demo)
16 – By Crooked Steps (Demo)
17 – Bones Of Birds (Demo)
18 – A Thousand Days Before (Demo)

Personnel:
    Matt Cameron – drums, percussion, Moog (5 and 12), backing vocals (8)
    Chris Cornell – vocals, rhythm guitar, piano (6), mandolin (7)
    Ben Shepherd – bass guitar, additional guitar (7 and 8), baritone guitar (8), backing vocals (8)
    Kim Thayil – lead guitar, mandolin (4), horn arrangements (4 and 9)
+
    Adam Kasper - piano (6), tambura (4)
    Jeff McGrath - trumpet (4 and 9)
    Greg Powers - tenor and bass trombone (4 and 9)
    Brad Stevens - tenor and baritone saxophone (9)
    Bubba Dupree - stun guitar (8)
    Bullet - vocals (9)
    Mike McCready – guitar (12)

Rock 'n' roll roars back to life with Soundgarden's King Animal.

The group's long-awaited sixth studio offering is both the year's best album and a landmark for the Seattle legends. In essence, it's a journey in the truest since of the word. From the jump, Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd, and Matt Cameron open up the gates into a world not far removed from Badmotorfinger and Superunknown but existent within its personal sphere. In the most wild, weird, and wonderful way, King Animal is distinctly its own beast.

For almost an hour, there are moments of blistering intensity. There are moments of contemplative and compelling psychedelia. There are moments of divine shredding. However, they all come together to form one hell of a ride on par with the timeless work of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles.

Thayil's airtight riffing sets the tone on the first single and opening salvo, "Been Away Too Long". The track breaks into a serenely haunting bridge punctuated by Shepherd's staggering bass and Cameron's impenetrable percussion. Cornell's wail resounds with more primal power than ever. Oh, it's louder than love for sure.

Soon, "Non-State Actor" and "By Crooked Steps" jaggedly swing between time signatures, painting poetically dark pictures worthy of pondering. "Blood on the Valley Floor" resounds with seesawing distortion from Thayil that's as ominous as it is invigorating. He remains a guitar god in his own right, siphoning melody through the strangest and most searing six-string sorcery.

"Bones of Birds" is an eerie rumination on mortality driven by Cornell's immortal delivery and brilliant lyrics. He ponders, "Sometimes she won't cry when the smallest one is drowned" and "too weak to survive".

"Taree" twists and turns with a dose of Middle Eastern flare, while "Attrition" is a punked-out rocker with real claws and teeth. Another stand out "Black Saturday" haunts and hypnotizes with its airy acoustic guitar and Cornell's lines, "Promise something, kill me right away if I start to get slow". It's a cinematic portrayal that evokes all kinds of beautifully brutal imagery. In other words, it's classic Soundgarden.

"Eyelid's Mouth" and "Worse Dreams" tread heavier territory without ever losing their power. Everything closes on "Rowing". It sounds like the greatest blues song to never happen in the '60s. Cornell urges, "Stopping is dying. You'll be alright".

Now, that there's a new Soundgarden record we'll be more than alright… —Rick Florino, artistdirect.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex 4shared mediafire uloz.to gett bayfiles

back

Soundgarden - Telephantasm (2010)

2011-05-20T10:40:24Z

Soundgarden - Telephantasm (2010)

CD 1
01. All Your Lies (3:53)
02. Hunted Down (2:41)
03. Fopp (3:38)
04. Beyond The Wheel (4:23)
05. Flower (BBC Session) (3:28)		play
06. Hands All Over (5:58)
07. Big Dumb Sex (4:11)
08. Get On The Snake (Live) (3:30)		play
09. Room A Thousand Years Wide (Single Version) (4:14)
10. Rusty Cage (4:27)
11. Outshined (5:11)
12. Slaves & Bulldozers (6:58)

CD 2
01. Jesus Christ Pose (Live) (7:13)
02. Birth Ritual (6:04)
03. My Wave (5:15)
04. Superunknown (5:09)
05. Spoonman (4:07)						play
06. Black Hole Sun (5:20)
07. Fell on black Days (Video Version) (4:46)
08. Burden in my Hand (4:49)
09. Dusty (4:36)
10. Pretty Noose (Live on SNI.) (4:25)	play
11. Blow up the outside World (MTV Live 'N' Loud) (5:32)
12. Black Rain (5:26)

Personnel:
Chris Cornell - vocals, guitar
Kim Thayil – lead guitar
Ben Shepherd – bass guitar, backing vocals
Matt Cameron - drums, backing vocals 
Hiro Yamamoto – bass
Scott Sundquist – percussion.

With the Knights of the Soundtable riding once more after 13 years apart, the time is right for an in-depth retrospective of one of the grunge era’s best-loved bands. Soundgarden, Seattle natives at the epicentre of the early 1990s’ plaid-and-flannel rock scene, already have one best-of to their name, 1997’s A-Sides. But Telephantasm goes further, spreading itself across 24 tracks and two discs, including excellent live performances alongside commercially released singles.

Favourites from these two-dozen numbers are sure to be selected according to listener age. As someone (just) in their early 30s, the Badmotorfinger and Superunknown cuts are instant reminders of my early explorations into what most parents would, at the time, have considered an unlistenable racket. These two long-players – the band’s third and fourth, from 1991 and 1994 respectively – are widely acknowledged to be the band’s best collections, and with good reason: plot a graph of their MTV-assisted mainstream fortunes and it’ll peak between the pair, primarily due to the plethora of brilliant singles from the period. From Badmotorfinger, Outshined and Rusty Cage enjoyed minor success in the UK; from Superunknown, Black Hole Sun reached number 12 in the UK and topped the chart in the US, while Spoonman and Fell on Black Days were also stateside top ten hits.

This can be seen as something of a surprise, as while association with the scene that spawned the globe-conquering Nirvana didn’t harm Soundgarden’s chances of breaking through, their sound owed much more to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath – battleship-sized basslines, belt-it-out vocals – than it did the scrappy punk outfits that appealed to Cobain and company. Soundgarden were old back when they were new, meaning that much of Telephantasm doesn’t sound horribly dated. Its raw charms may have aged, but they’re sharper than same-era cuts from fellow Seattleites Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

The earliest songs here, from 1988 debut Ultramega OK (Flower, Beyond the Wheel) and the following year’s Louder Than Love (Big Dumb Sex, Hands All Over), lack the production punch of later fare. But the songwriting craft exhibited by frontman Chris Cornell and ex-bassist Hiro Yamamoto (replaced by Ben Shepherd in 1990) is already showing plenty of promise. Cornell would follow Soundgarden’s final LP, 1996’s thoroughly decent Down on the Upside (Burden in My Hand, Pretty Noose), with a string of less-appealing projects which culminated in a truly awful third solo LP, 2009’s Scream. But his various lows can be forgiven by just a single listen to this compilation’s numerous nose-bleeding highs, closed out by a previously unreleased and suitably low-end-centric treat, Black Rain, from the Badmotorfinger sessions. --- Mike Diver, BBC Review.

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto bayfiles

back

Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger (1991)

2009-12-28T12:08:29Z

Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger (1991)


1 	Rusty Cage 	4:26
2 	Outshined 	5:11
3 	Slaves & Bulldozers	6:56
4 	Jesus Christ Pose	6:51
5 	Face Pollution	2:24
6 	Somewhere	4:21
7 	Searching With My Good Eye Closed 	6:31
8 	Room A Thousand Years Wide	4:06
9 	Mind Riot 	4:49
10 	Drawing Flies	2:25
11 	Holy Water 	5:07
12 	New Damage	5:40

Bass – Ben Shepherd
Drums – Matt Cameron
Guitar – Kim Thayil
Musician [Additional], Narrator – Damon Stewart
Musician [Additional], Saxophone – Scott Granlund
Musician [Additional], Trumpet – Ernst Long
Vocals, Guitar – Chris Cornell

Bidding for a popular breakthrough with their second major-label album, Soundgarden suddenly developed a sense of craft, with the result that Badmotorfinger became far and away their most fully realized album to that point. Pretty much everything about Badmotorfinger is a step up from its predecessors -- the production is sharper and the music more ambitious, while the songwriting takes a quantum leap in focus and consistency. In so doing, the band abolishes the murky meandering that had often plagued them in the past, turning in a lean, muscular set that signaled their arrival in rock's big leagues. Conventional wisdom has it that despite platinum sales, Badmotorfinger got lost amid the blockbuster success of Nevermind and Ten (all were released around the same time). But the fact is that, though they're all great records, Badmotorfinger is much less accessible by comparison. Not that it isn't melodic, but it also sounds twisted and gnarled, full of dissonant riffing, impossible time signatures, howling textural solos, and weird, droning tonalities. It's surprisingly cerebral and arty music for a band courting mainstream metal audiences, but it attacks with scientific precision. Part of that is due to the presence of new bassist Ben Shepherd, who gives the band its thickest rhythmic foundation yet -- and, moreover, immediately shoulders the departed Hiro Yamamoto's share of songwriting duties. But it's apparent that the whole band has greatly expanded the scope of its ambitions. And Badmotorfinger fulfills them, pulling all the different threads of the band's sound together into a mature, confident, well-written record. This is heavy, challenging hard rock full of intellectual sensibility and complex band interplay. And with their next album, Soundgarden would learn how to make it fully accessible to mainstream audiences as well. ---Steve Huey, AllMusic Review

Jak każdy słuchający rocka nastolatek, na początku swojej muzycznej drogi przechodziłem fascynację Nirvaną. Kilka lat później największym uwielbieniem darzyłem Pearl Jam. Dziś jednak z zespołów grunge'owych najbardziej cenię Alice in Chains i Soundgarden. Choć w przypadku tego drugiego, nigdy nie udało mi się przekonać do jego najwcześniejszych dokonań (debiutanckiego "Ultramega OK" i jego następcy, "Louder Than Love"). Dla mnie Soundgarden zaczyna się od trzeciego albumu, "Badmotorfinger". Zresztą dla samego zespołu także było to przełomowe wydawnictwo, po którego premierze został zauważony w muzycznym świecie.

Na tle wcześniejszej twórczości, "Badmotorfinger" wyróżnia się na pewno lepszym, mocniejszym brzmieniem. Ale przede wszystkim, muzycy rozwinęli się jako kompozytorzy. Takie utwory, jak "Rusty Cage", "Outshined", "Slaves & Bulldozers", "Jesus Christ Pose" czy "Holy Water" fantastycznie łączą dobre melodie i sabbathowy ciężar. Wpływ Black Sabbath na grupę jest niekwestionowany, jednak nie ma tutaj zbyt oczywistych nawiązań ani bezrefleksyjnego kopiowania. Muzycy stworzyli swój własny styl, na miarę lat 90. Słychać tu zresztą także inne wpływy, jak punk rock ("Face Pollution"), rock tzw. alternatywny ("Somewhere"), a nawet pojawia się odrobina psychodelii ("Search with My Good Eye Closed", "Mind Riot"). Świetnym - i niekonwencjonalnym, jak na taką muzykę - pomysłem było dodanie partii saksofonu i trąbki w "Room a Thousand Years Wide" i "Drawing Flies". Ten pierwszy to zresztą mój ulubiony kawałek w całym repertuarze Soundgarden. Jest tu wszystko, za co cenię zespół, a dodatkowo wspomniane dęciaki dodają lekko jazzowego posmaku. Nie przekonuje mnie natomiast finałowy "New Damage", który nie wnosi już nic ciekawego i tylko niepotrzebnie wydłuża album.

Mocnym elementem zespołu jest Chris Cornell, który ze wszystkich grunge'owych wokalistów ma zdecydowanie najlepszy głos i największe umiejętności śpiewania. Nie można jednak zapomnieć o umiejętności Kima Thayila do tworzenia świetnych riffów, ani o sekcji rytmicznej, która nie ogranicza się do konwencjonalnego akompaniamentu. Wśród zespołów grunge'owych Soundgarden wyróżnia się bardziej eksperymentalnym podejściem, objawiającym się poprzez kombinowanie z nietypowym strojeniem gitar lub nieoczywistym metrum. Na "Badmotorfinger" otrzymujemy to wszystko w bardziej dojrzałej formie, niż na wcześniejszych wydawnictwach. Album jest jednak nieco za długi i przez to pod koniec robi się lekko nużący. ---Paweł Pałasz, pablosreviews.blogspot.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto gett bayfiles

back

Soundgarden – Down on The Upside (1996)

2009-12-28T12:19:28Z

Soundgarden – Down on The Upside (1996)


1. Pretty Noose
2. Rhinosaur
3. Zero Chance
4. Dusty
5. Ty Cobb
6. Blow Up The Outside World
7. Burden In My Hand
8. Never Named
9. Applebite
10. Never The Machine Forever
11. Tighter & Tighter
12. No Attention
13. Switch Opens
14. Overfloater
15. An Unkind
16. Boot Camp

Bass – Ben Shepherd
Drums, Percussion – Matt Cameron
Lead Guitar – Kim Thayil
Vocals, Guitar – Chris Cornell
+
Mandolin, Mandolin [Mandola] – Ben Shepherd, Chris Cornell
Synthesizer [Moog], Music By – Matt Cameron
Electric Piano [Rhodes Piano] – Chris Cornell

Superunknown was a breakthrough in many ways. Not only did the album bring Soundgarden a new audience, it dramatically expanded their vision, as well as their accomplishments. If Down on the Upside initially seems a retreat from the grand, layered textures of Superunknown, let it sink in. The sound of Down on the Upside is certainly more immediate, but the band hasn't returned to the monstrous, unfocused wailing of Louder Than Love. Instead, they've retained their ambitious song structures, neo-psychedelic guitar textures, and winding melodies but haven't dressed them up with detailed production. Consequently, Down on the Upside is visceral as well as cerebral -- "Rhinosaur" goes for the gut, while "Pretty Noose" is updated, muscular prog rock. Down on the Upside is a deceptive album -- it might seem like nothing more than heavy metal, but a closer listen reveals that Soundgarden haven't tempered their ambitions at all. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic Review

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto gett bayfiles

back

Soundgarden – Fresh Deadly Rarities (2000)

2009-12-28T12:21:46Z

Soundgarden – Fresh Deadly Rarities (2000)


01. Toy Box
02. Herectic
03. Come Together (Beatles cover)
04. Fresh Deadly Rpses
05. Into The Void (Black Sabbath cover)
06. Girl You Want (Devo cover)
07. Stray Cat Blues (Rolling Stones cover)
08. She's a Politician (Devo cover)
09. Cold Bitch
10. SHow Me
11. Touch Me
12. I Don't Care About You (Fear cover)
13. Can You See Me (Jimmy Hendrix cover)
14. I Can Give You Anything (The Ramones cover)
15. Homicidal Suicidal (The Buzzcocks cover)
16. Shel Like Surprises
17. Like Suicide (acoustic)

Bass – Ben Sheppard (tracks: 5 to 17), Hiro Yamamoto (tracks: 1 to 4)
Drums – Matt Cameron
Lead Guitar – Kim Thayil
Vocals, Guitar – Chris Cornell

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto gett bayfiles

back

Soundgarden – Superunknown (1994)

2009-12-28T12:24:03Z

Soundgarden – Superunknown (1994)


1. "Let Me Drown" - 3:52
2. "My Wave" - 5:12
3. "Fell On Black Days" - 4:42
4. "Mailman" - 4:25
5. "Superunknown" - 5:06
6. "Head Down" - 6:09
7. "Black Hole Sun" - 5:18
8. "Spoonman" - 4:06
9. "Limo Wreck" - 5:47
10. "The Day I Tried To Live" - 5:19
11. "Kickstand" - 1:34
12. "Fresh Tendrils" - 4:16
13. "4th Of July" - 5:08
14. "Half" - 2:14
15. "Like Suicide" - 7:01
16. "She Likes Surprises" - 3:17

Bass, Vocals – Ben Shepherd
Drums, Percussion – Matt Cameron
Lead Guitar – Kim Thayil
Vocals, Guitar – Chris Cornell
+
Piano – Michael Beinhorn
Drums, Percussion – Ben Shepherd, Gregg Keplinger
Spoons – Artis The Spoonman
Clavinet – Natasha Shneider
Cello – Justine Foy
Viola – April Acevez
Vocals, Guitar – Ben Shepherd

Soundgarden's finest hour, Superunknown is a sprawling, 70-minute magnum opus that pushes beyond any previous boundaries. Soundgarden had always loved replicating Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath riffs, but Superunknown's debt is more to mid-period Zep's layered arrangements and sweeping epics. Their earlier punk influences are rarely detectable, replaced by surprisingly effective appropriations of pop and psychedelia. Badmotorfinger boasted more than its fair share of indelible riffs, but here the main hooks reside mostly in Chris Cornell's vocals; accordingly, he's mixed right up front, floating over the band instead of cutting through it. The rest of the production is just as crisp, with the band achieving a huge, robust sound that makes even the heaviest songs sound deceptively bright. But the most important reason Superunknown is such a rich listen is twofold: the band's embrace of psychedelia, and their rapidly progressing mastery of songcraft. Soundgarden had always been a little mind-bending, but the full-on experiments with psychedelia give them a much wider sonic palette, paving the way for less metallic sounds and instruments, more detailed arrangements, and a bridge into pop (which made the eerie ballad "Black Hole Sun" an inescapable hit). That blossoming melodic skill is apparent on most of the record, not just the poppier songs and Cornell-penned hits; though a couple of drummer Matt Cameron's contributions are pretty undistinguished, they're easy to overlook, given the overall consistency. The focused songwriting allows the band to stretch material out for grander effect, without sinking into the pointlessly drawn-out muck that cluttered their early records. The dissonance and odd time signatures are still in force, though not as jarring or immediately obvious, which means that the album reveals more subtleties with each listen. It's obvious that Superunknown was consciously styled as a masterwork, and it fulfills every ambition. ---Steve Huey, AllMusic Review

Czy jest to najlepsza płyta w dyskografii Soundgarden? Chris Cornell konsekwentnie trzyma się zdania, że szczytowym osiągnięciem tego zespołu był dopiero wydany dwa lata później album Down On The Upside. Wielu fanów (w tym niżej podpisany) wyżej ocenia płytę Badmotorfinger z 1991 roku. Nie podlega jednak dyskusji fakt, że Superunknown było najbardziej donośnym i najważniejszym z ich dzieł.

Od czasu poprzedniej płyty minęły 3 lata. To dużo, zwłaszcza, że po drodze na świat spadła grunge'owa gorączka. Wydaje się, że Soundgarden trochę pozazdrościli sukcesu komercyjnego takim kapelom jak Nirvana,Pearl Jam czy Alice In Chains. Chociaż Badmotorfinger był wielkim albumem, to prezentował jeszcze stosunkowo trudną muzykę. Tym razem Chris Cornell chciał tworzyć przeboje – takie na miarę Smells Like Teen Spirit, Jeremy czy Would?. Udało się. Superunknown zawiera najbardziej rozpoznawalne utwory grupy. Na czoło wysuwa się oczywiście Black Hole Sun – jeden z największych, rockowych hitów lat 90-tych. Za jego plecami gromadzą się niewiele mu ustępujące Fell On Black Days, My Wave, Spoonman, Day I Tried To Live. Całkiem pokaźne stadko, nieprawdaż?

Trzeba też zaznaczyć, że chociaż Soundgarden stali się niewątpliwie mainstream’owi, to nie schowali do końca pazurów. Obok nastrojowych 4th of July czy Like Suicide pojawiają się potężnie brzmiące Limo Wreck i Mailman. To czego zdecydowanie brakuje, to "soundgardenowych wymiataczy" w stylu Rusty Cage czy Drowing Flies. Jest właściwie tylko króciutki Kickstand – niezły, ale trwa niewiele ponad minutę. Nie zapomnieli natomiast o charakterystycznych dla siebie wypadach w stronę bardziej narkotycznych brzmień. O ile jednak orientalne Half z pewnością dodaje płycie uroku, to już nieco przydługie Head Down dla wielu słuchaczy może okazać się zbyt męczące.

Doszukiwanie się niedoskonałości w jednej z najważniejszych płyt dekady, to może gruby nietakt, nie mniej jednak uważam, że Superunknown ma jedną zasadniczą wadę – jest zbyt długie. Przekleństwo obfitości? Coś w tym rodzaju. Rozumiem, że mając przygotowany materiał na tak wysokim poziomie, ciężko zmusić się do odrzucenia czegokolwiek, ale mam wrażenie, że gdyby nieco przyciąć tu i ówdzie, to moglibyśmy mówić o tej płycie, jak o nieskazitelnym arcydziele. I chociaż do doskonałości czegoś tu jeszcze brakuje, to ani Chris Cornell, ani reszta tego składu, nigdy później nie byli tak blisko jej osiągnięcia. ---Paweł Derwiński, rockers.com.pl

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto gett bayfiles

back