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Fresh Sonic Templates![]() ![]()
The nineties have become a decade of consolidation in rock and roll. From Seattle's appropriation of vintage Midwestern pre-punk, to the nouveau funk wing and the latest power-pop movement, we've reached a point--and rock is hardly the first art form to get there--where the past is completely present. Average performers regurgitate their influences, while the best reconfigure them into fresh sonic templates. Soundgarden's latest release, Down on the Upside, explores this style blending to even greater effect than the quartet did on its 1994 smash, Superunknown. Upside cuts a broad swath through a couple of decades worth of rock conventions, including ferocious speed-punk ("Ty Cobb," "An Unkind"), stomping metal ("Rhinosaur," "Tighter & Tighter"), melodic torch paeans ("Zero Chance"), and trippy psychedelia ("Dusty," "Switch Opens").
Upside has some downsides--mostly notably its length. At sixteen songs, it is too long, and trimming a weaker number such as "Never the Machine Forever" or a minute or two from the ponderous end of "Tighter & Tighter" would have made for an even stronger album. But that only marginally detracts from Soundgarden's achievement of building exceptional new music from a wide array of forebears. --Gary Graff |
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