Down on the Upside
Mandolins are an unlikely way to make a Soundgarden song more aggressive. Ty Cobb manages it anyway, turning a bright acoustic texture into the starting point for a furious rush. Down on the Upside is full of decisions that make sense once the band starts playing them.
The 1996 album favours a looser surface than Superunknown, with less of a sense that every sound has been placed behind glass. That suits Pretty Noose, whose winding guitar part keeps tugging at the vocal melody. Rhinosaur is more direct and muscular, but it still has the rhythmic alertness that separates Soundgarden from a band simply leaning on a heavy riff.
The quieter songs are crucial. Zero Chance gives Chris Cornell a melody that can carry sadness without a large dramatic gesture. Burden in My Hand puts acoustic guitar under a much bigger vocal performance, creating a strangely open sound for such troubled material. The contrast feels built into the writing rather than added to make a single more approachable.
Blow Up the Outside World makes the familiar quiet-to-loud movement feel worthwhile because its chorus releases pressure accumulated by the verses. Elsewhere, the band follows less obvious routes. Never the Machine Forever brings back a harder guitar attack, while Applebite makes the voice part of a blurred atmosphere. These tracks prevent the album from settling into one predictable method.
Sixteen songs do leave room for the focus to wander. The rougher, shorter numbers are not all equally distinctive, and some of the slower passages need the right amount of attention to reveal their detail. The record is more convincing as a varied collection than as a perfectly shaped sequence.
Boot Camp is an effective final choice, withholding the sort of triumphant finish a long rock album might be expected to deliver. Its unsettled mood makes the preceding variety feel connected. Down on the Upside has plenty of strong individual songs, but its deeper appeal is the freedom with which Soundgarden moves between force, melody and uncertainty.
