As one of the heavier, more metal-indebted bands to emerge through the filter of grunge, it’s sometimes easy to overlook Soundgarden’s more delicate traits.
But go back to Superunknown and the psychedelic thread running through it makes the late-period Beatles influence on Chris Cornell’s debut solo album, from 1999, a logical next step for a singer moving on from the band that made him. It wasn’t a huge hit on release, and going back to it with its original title restored (the label made him rename it Euphoria Morning at the time), its tastefulness could well have been its downfall.
Cornell possesses some of the most powerful pipes in rock, but there’s a sense of them being reined in here, a move into blander mainstream rock that led to Bond-theme acceptance but fails to truly thrill, although Follow My Way comes close to blossoming into something wonderfully strange.
Preaching The End Of The World, however, sounds like Paul McCartney trampling across Radiohead’s vegetable patch, and sums up the problem: too many respectful influences, not enough of the intense personality we know Cornell has in there somewhere.
