King Animal
Been Away Too Long is a fairly blunt title for an opening song. Fortunately, Soundgarden play it with enough force to make the announcement useful. King Animal begins briskly, then takes the more interesting route of letting the band's familiar sound stretch into less obvious shapes.
The 2012 album puts Kim Thayil's guitar back in conversation with a rhythm section that knows how to make a riff feel unstable. Non-State Actor keeps changing its footing without breaking the groove. By Crooked Steps is even better, using its uneven rhythmic movement as a hook rather than a barrier. Matt Cameron's drumming gives the instruments a firm centre while allowing the guitar parts to pull against it.
Chris Cornell sings with a fuller, more measured presence than on the band's earliest records. The change suits A Thousand Days Before, where the rolling guitar pattern has room to develop around him. Bones of Birds also benefits from restraint, although its chorus does not quite match the uneasy promise of its verses. King Animal contains strong arrangements that occasionally seem to be waiting for an equally strong melodic turn.
Black Saturday supplies a change of texture through acoustic guitar and a more spacious atmosphere. Halfway There is immediately approachable, but its straightforward structure makes it feel less individual beside the stranger songs. Soundgarden are most convincing here when their shared instincts complicate the material, rather than simply giving a solid rock song a familiar voice.
Rowing is a good example. Its repeated vocal figure and low rhythmic pulse gradually become something larger and more physical. The song closes the record through accumulation, offering a different kind of release from the opening rush.
The album does not deliver a defining chorus at every turn, and its middle section can lose some urgency. Yet the playing has a purpose beyond reminding listeners of an established style. King Animal succeeds most clearly in its rhythms and guitar detail, where four distinctive musicians keep making room for one another's awkward ideas.
