As a unit, Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron have not released an album of new music in over 15 years. That will change on Nov. 13th with the release of King Animal, which was produced by Adam Kasper, who was also on board for the last Soundgarden album, Down on the Upside [A&M-1996].
Cool, right?
Except, the first single from the awfully titled King Animal, "Live to Rise"--which was released as a tie-in to The Avengers movie--has some nice riffage bolted onto weak verses which sound like they were leftovers from the second Cornell solo album. And the album's lead off track, "Been Gone Too Long", is kinda meh. (And let's not even get into how painfully obvious it has become that Cornell's voice is mostly shot, in so far as a classic Soungarden caliber-type performance is concerned.)
But there is hope.
"Non-State Actor", with its Louder than Love [A&M-1989] via Down on the Upside vibe, started streaming on Halloween and is quite promising. Check it out below before the stream is cut off.
