Soundgarden
[#] Live From the Artists Den (2019)
Decent, but unessential live Soundgarden.
Reviewed July 7, 2025
As Soundgarden was converted from a legacy act to a posthumous one with the death of Chris Cornell in 2017, the vault live recordings to satisfy demand for new Soundgarden material have started flowing. (Not like there's not a whole unreleased album being hashed out or anything...) In 2013, the newly reformed Soundgarden appeared on Live From the Artists Den, a PBS show that puts famous acts in unconventional venues, and put on, well, a pretty average show. The group definitely still has their tightness, but you can imagine the years have taken their toll on Chris' voice, and the whole thing seems strangely unexciting.
Leaning heavily on the then-new King Animal tracks, perhaps it's just them having been written with Chris' weathered vocals in mind, but these translate best to the stage. There's a surprising amount of early Soundgarden in the set too, and the sludgy, slow, groovy confines of "Incessant Mace" or the still-demonic "Hunted Down" sound killer in their grizzled old age. It's the mid-career songs that have Chris reaching into his upper range, like "Spoonman" or "Burden in My Hand", that have the man croaking atonally—the less said about it, the better. Maybe it was all the cameras, maybe it's old age, but Live From the Artists Den is on the whole tastefully sedate, which isn't exactly how I like my Soundgarden.
| Essential: | "Incessant Mace", "Hunted Down", "Bones of Birds" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Jesus Christ Pose" |
| Non-Essential: | "Spoonman" |
| Rating: |  |
[#] King Animal (2012)
A spotty, but ultimately satisfying, reunion.
Reviewed January 9, 2021
(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read my first impressions, or read on for how they might have changed.)
Soundgarden's 90s breakup wasn't violent. There were no ongoing band feuds, no one died to cause it—it just kinda happened quietly, with the most musically talented of the Big Four of Grunge calling it quits for lack of agreement on direction and exhaustion from touring and all that usual shit. To hear of the band, now sixteen years older, trying to perform the wild, cerebral prog-metal of its relative youth brings worries that they might not still have it. King Animal thankfully dissolves every one of those worries, the catch being the best stuff is on the back half of the album where the band stretches its wings. When they try to sound most like themselves, weirdly, is when they're at their least memorable.
No disservice to the players—Chris Cornell can still wail, Kim Thayil can still take a screaming solo, and Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron are still the finest, strangest rhythm section in all of 90s rock. It's just that, aside from the skittery hard rock autobiography in "Been Away Too Long", nothing until "Blood on the Valley Floor" and especially the morbid lurch of "Bones of Birds" sticks to the wall very well. This album's secret weapon is the blues-toned unease that comes out strong in its second half. "Black Saturday"'s detuned acoustics give King Animal a rootsy twist classic Soundgarden never suggested, and Ben tucks two of his finest basslines, "Worse Dreams" and "Eyelid's Mouth", right at the tail end of the album. Oh, and "Taree"—this psychedelic ode to the Northwest was held for 15 years until Chris could sing it proper, and goddamn, was that the right call.
| Essential: | "Been Away Too Long", "Bones of Birds", "Taree" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Worse Dreams" |
| Non-Essential: | "A Thousand Days Before" |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | King Animal's Rediscovering entry |