Album Review

Soundgarden – Telephantasm

• 21st Sep 2010

The reformation of one of the best grunge bands last sees a continuing trend for bands of yesteryear getting back together for live shows and the prospect of new material. Faith no More have been touring to great acclaim, and now Soundgarden are back too.

Grunge fans rate these bands in varying order. True grunge fans seem to agree that Nirvana is still the most over hyped of the bunch that had the greatest success whilst the likes of Perl Jam had the staying power to keep their music strong. Other bands have taken time out including the likes of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. Most if not all bands have been plagued with stories of drugs and in some cases death. What keeps us coming back is the quality of the music.

And it is in this release that we get to look back on Soundgarden’s output with this mix of singles and rare track releases along with a new single in the form of Black Rain.

Looking at the disc of familiar material we get some live recordings of Jesus Christ pose, Pretty Noose and Blow Up the Outside World. It’s nice to chart how quickly and confidently Chris Cornell’s voice has matured. It’s no wonder he sought to do other things with his voice. Yes not all of these have been successful but they are worthwhile ventures for a voice that needs no restraint.

But of course Soundgarden are three other guys as well and together they are arguably the better of the grunge bands. Quite simply cause they never offered up an album that sucked. Their last effort “Down On The Upside” brought us some tremendous singles. Perhaps the album was jam-packed full of some other filler material, but overall it was still a worthy effort. But the argument to this day seems to be whether the greatest effort by them was their early effort “Badmotorfinger” or the largely commercial hit “Superunknown”. Personally I don’t think they got better than the latter as it is an album that can demand hard work. It took me a while before I fully appreciated everything about it – so it was almost like hard work paying off in a big bad way. Take note: this is not the same as being forced to listen to something until you start to like it – it’s more a case of discovering new things each time you listen and uncovering layers. The earlier album though has more purity to it and sees them walking the fine line between the rough beginnings and the refined popularity.

Get back to Telephantasm: I don’t know if this release is a marketing ploy to see if there is still interest in the band. Which considering that all these other bands from the same era are doing so well wouldn’t make much sense. But it’s a long two disc trawl through the very early material on the first disc where you can see the genius roots of the band that could literally have taken off in a very different direction. There are hints of the psychedelic, a large portion of punk with a lot less restraint as raw early records tend to have.

But by the time we are going through the still phenomenally great Superunknown, Spoonman, Burden In My Hand we are ready for something new. A live rendition of Blow Up the Outside World demonstrates Cornell’s power as a live performer, but then halfway through something goes terribly wrong and the disc refuses to play anymore! This is highly irritating as it’s a great song and we have yet to hear the last track on the album, the new song! Black Rain. But it is not to be on this occasion as after the disc is popped there is the discovery of two white round grazes on the disc which is clearly the problem! So it is not to be this time round, left to ponder what might have been, but still happy that one of the better rock acts that ever was is back with the possibility of a future.

It’s been a busy couple of years, but now that we have Soundgarden, Faith No More, Stone Temple Pilots, Guns n’ Roses and Alice In Chains back, Perhaps they can reflect on why they felt the need to go in the first place.