Soundgarden are one of my favourite bands so when I heard that Chris Cornell was linking up with the remainder of Rage Against the Machine I was happy as I foolishly thought it would all be ok. Two of the things that made Soundgarden really special were the guitar and the vocals. While I expected to be disappointed musically I had high expectations of the vocal quality wihch were used to great effect on the entire of 'Superunknown'.
Before any music had been offically released the publicity machine went into overdrive, initally the tracks recorded under the Civilian name recently circulated on the internet, while it was claimed that the new songs are said to be different to those leaked the only difference was the inital leaked batch were demos. I heard the Civilian leaks and was surprised by the lack of control Cornell had over his voice, far from the melodies of Black hole Sun or Fell on Black Days it instead sounded like he had strained his voice from shouting and ruined it forever. But these were just demos, the real thing had to be better.
Then the news broke that Civilian had split just before they were due to play Ozfest (probably a smart more given the shambles it degenerated into), then they reformed under the handle of Audioslave. Unfortunitly that name was already taken by an unsigned four-piece from Liverpool. The group were approached by US lawyers when the American Audioslave were worried they might be confused with their English namesakes, who are more used to playing low-key gigs around the North-West of England. Sony intially offered $5,000 and said they wanted exclusive use of the name but eventually settled for paying $30,000 and agreed that both bands could use the name Audioslave. Sony obviously had faith in the selling power of their Audioslave.
There was also the small matter of the logo, the similarities between the logos of Adema and Audioslave are terrifying. Not content with churning out generic rock they also could not come up with a unique logo - although Audioslave's was apparently 'designed' by Pink Floyd sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson. No questions were ever raised publically about the logo but the video caused enough publicity to disguise this fact.
During the filming of the video for the single, Cochise, in LA a pyrotechnic display that accompanied it made such noise that over 1,000 local residents called emergency services believing a terrorist attack was underway. All the free publicity was probably benefical. I am confused about the mistaking fireworks for terrorists bit, I would hope people could tell the difference.
Tom Morello told reporters that "the local police and news station literally received thousands of calls from people who thought the city was under siege.. all the freeways were blocked because they thought there was an attack occurring. Like someone had decided to attack and the target was going to be the San Fernando Valley." But at least the writing process was going well with claims that they have almost two albums worth of material ready.
Finally after much delay, huge amounts of hype from Sony, in addition to a large ready-made fanbase consisting of Rage and Soundgarden fans. But the album was not greeted with the fanfare that might have been expected, despite a "marketing budget bigger than China" NME said that the album was "overblown, overlong, piss-poor." I would not quite go so far, it was overhyped and contains only two good songs but they sounded happy making it.
The first single was well received by most people, especialy those who had not heard any Soundgarden so did not know better. Described by many as being fierce, furious and sounding like Led Zeppelin. I thought it sucked, Cornell sounds old and his voice is shot to heck. The video for 'Like a stone' shows them sitting around looking confused and bored, which sums up exactly my reaction.
It could be a far worse album but it should have been so much better. Cornell does appear to have strained his vioce to the extent that he can no longer sing, only croak and attempt to croon. Bearing no real resemblence to Soundgarden's greatness or even Cornell's solo 'Euphoria Morning', it is a lot better than Jerry Cantrell's latest solo album though.
The Audioslave album sold well, I think it may have even charted, but looking at Amazon the same people bought Pearl Jam Riot Act, System of a Down Steal This Album and the dire new QOTSA album Songs for the Deaf. If you like your rock watered down and corrupted by the corporations then buy this album, otherwise go out and get a Soundgarden one.
