Amazing as this may sound, but back when I first bought and
\nlistened to
\nSuperunknown<\/i>, Soundgarden’s third major label release, I was
\ndisappointed by it. To my ears, gone was a lot of the rawness and
\nunbridled energy that made their major label debut
\nLouder Than Love<\/i> a favorite of mine when I discovered
\nalternative rock. I got tired of hearing songs like “Spoonman” and
\n“Fell On Black Days” on the radio.<\/p>\n
But that was 1994, and this is today. After digging it out of
\nthe Pierce Archives, I made a startling discovery: I was totally
\nwrong about
\nSuperunknown<\/i>. The album might have more of a bend towards
\nrock radio, but the energy is still there, if not the rawness. This
\nalbum truly deserved the greatness it earned.<\/p>\n
The first single off
\nSuperunknown<\/i>, “Black Hole Sun,” brought a lot of Led
\nZeppelin comparisons to Chris Cornell and crew. The song’s layers,
\nbuilding from soft melody to a crunching chorus, is a thing of
\nbeauty, demonstrating that the success this band had earned to this
\npoint was no fluke. The riffs might have been Zeppelin-influenced,
\nbut don’t you dare call them copies or rip-offs.<\/p>\n
The energy level rarely lets up on this album. From the opening
\ncut “Let Me Drown” to the brief furiousness of “Kickstand” to the
\nmelodic adrenalin rush of the title track, Soundgarden pull out all
\nthe stops on this release, and challenge the listener to hang on
\nfor dear life.<\/p>\n
There are only two songs I really don’t like on
\nSuperunknown<\/i> – and ironically, they were both singles.
\n“Spoonman” is an okay track, but doesn’t rank in my book among the
\nbest work that Soundgarden has ever done. (I also don’t think this
\nsong was worthy of a Grammy for Best Metal Performance; the song,
\nto my ears, doesn’t fit the bill of heavy metal in the least, and
\nspoons don’t count as metal in this case.) The only other stumbling
\nblock, “The Day I Tried To Live,” is an experiment gone wrong with
\na power ballad. Oh, Soundgarden would get it right on “Blow Up The
\nOutside World” one album later, but this song is just a boat
\nanchor.<\/p>\n
Still, two minor flubs don’t really distract from the power of
\nSuperunknown<\/i>. “My Wave” is a song that will challenge any
\nmusician to keep up with the rhythms, and “Mailman” and “Head Down”
\nwill please and excite you. The second side weakens just a little
\nbit, but cuts like “Limo Wreck” and “Like Suicide” help pull
\neverything together.<\/p>\n
\nSuperunknown<\/i> is undoubtedly the album that broke Soundgarden
\ninto superstar status, and for good reason. Many of the songs on
\nthis album will eventually become true staples of the rock era,
\nespecially when someone decides to do the eventual compilation
\nalbum of this era, Soundgarden will probably be one of the first
\nbands featured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5753],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-39143","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-soundgarden","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39143","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39143"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}