Before Pearl Jam, before Soundgarden hit it big, there was Mother Love Bone. A cross between glam rock, punk and classic rock, the band was poised to break through to the big time. Then singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose.<\/p>\n
In his memory, two members of Mother Love Bone (Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard) got together with singer Chris Cornell and drummer Matt Cameron of Soundgarden for a tribute project. An unknown surfer\/singer named Eddie Vedder and guitarist Mike McCready was starting to record with Ament and Gossard at the time, so their work was added to some of the songs.<\/p>\n
After the record’s release, Ament, Gossard, Vedder and McCready formed Pearl Jam and went on to sell millions of records, including the masterpiece Ten<\/i>, the best album of the 1990s. Soundgarden recorded their own classic music and grunge broke through to the mainstream…the way Mother Love Bone was trying to do.<\/p>\n
They called this project and their quickie band Temple of the Dog<\/i>, and it is a fascinating listen, the sound of two about-to-be-superstar bands finding their sound and paying tribute to a fallen friend.<\/p>\n
The music sounds a lot like early Pearl Jam, but upon its release nobody really bought it. Then Pearl Jam hit big and the record company release “Hunger Strike” off this disc, which became a rock radio hit and gave both Pearl Jam and Soundgarden some exposure. Of note is the harmonizing of Vedder and Cornell and the socially-aware lyrics.<\/p>\n
One has to take the music here with a grain of salt; it’s definitely a product of the early 90s and the grunge movement, so much of it has not held up well over time. “Say Hello 2 Heaven,” “Times of Trouble” and “Wooden Jesus” all sound decent, in a time-warp way, but are hardly classics. On the other hand, they were never meant to be; it was just the sound of friends playing together in honor of losing one of their own. (Pearl Jam would re-record “Times” and call it “Footsteps”).<\/p>\n
Aside from “Hunger Strike” only two of the tracks really click. “Call Me A Dog” is a mournful blues number which sounds unlike anything either band would ever do again. But the real gem is “Reach Down,” an 11-minute epic that is the most explicit tribute to Wood. It’s a sprawling number with a catchy riff, some slow bluesy lyrics by Cornell and a drawn-out guitar solo in the middle. Scattered throughout are harmonies from the guys backing up Cornell’s passionate words. It’s darn near soulful. <\/p>\n
Temple Of The Dog<\/i> is more interesting for what it foreshadowed than what it actually is, but it remains a touchstone of grunge culture and is worth seeking out for fans of the genre or either of the big-name bands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":27017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7148],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38341","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-temple-of-the-dog","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38341"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}