Chris Cornell - Carry On (Interscope)
1/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
People slag off Americans as being over the top, loud and ridiculously gaudy, say their TV shows in general are plastic bubblegum wrappers of canned laughter and obvious jokes, and their chosen leader is a special-child out of control with a finger getting ever closer to that shiny red button... but musically you can't fault them for driving rock forward. They may indulge in cold blooded murder of the English tongue, but when it comes to plucking guitars, you have to look at the US for the best of 'em, and in that vein you have to acknowledge that Soundgarden and Audioslave were justifiably massive. However, they have never really made an impact over here in the UK, maybe because the bands, both led by Cornell, have always been behind the curve, sounding constantly out of date and having that slight bitter taste of indulgent Americana. US songwriters can so often get it right, but in Cornell's case, they can get it wrong... over and over again, and this album is another in a line of annoying releases that tries to be Springsteen, but ends up as a poor homage to 80s cock-rock, brash and tacky.
The vocals, the seemingly one attribute Chris has to offer music, sound annoyingly repetitive and awkwardly disorganized. His voice is indeed unique, we wont take that away from him, but when it sounds as grating as this, constantly nasal and gruff for the sake of being rock n roll, it doesn't matter how defined it is, it's still going to drive you mad by the end of this, his second solo album. He's trying to take on some new styles, and the slightly 70s soul 'Safe and Sound' adds a bit of variation to what's otherwise another album in a string of on-his-way-out efforts. It's these new approaches that possibly save it from having the masters burned, but the general feel of the album is just that of yet another derivative 2D American album that's putting country, blues and rock together with electric guitars and thinking it's a new idea. These people need to listen to what Hendrix was doing 30 years ago and instead of trying to copy it; expand on it, develop it and bring it up to date with something new to offer.
In essence, this is like a poor demo version of a bad Santana record. There are reasons to hear it, and one of them is 'You Know My Name', but that's only because we've heard it so much as the Bond theme it's starting to sound familiar and the rubbish nature of it is being forgotten, but that's about it. Normally you can pull off highlights from an album, potential singles and obvious tracks to come back to, but what's amazing about this is that nothing jumps out at you. The same was said about the new Editors album, but that was because every track on it was so astonishing, whereas here all 16... yes (sighs), 16... songs blur into one mass of pointlessness. OK, so a lot of it might be down to personal taste, but that aside, nobody could say with any sense of honesty that 'Carry On' has anything, in any way, original or unique to deliver, making even the new Joe Cocker release look appealing. You might want to listen to this out of curiosity and no doubt it'll do well in the charts thanks to Cornell's history, but seriously, it has to be one of the most pointless pieces of plastic you'll ever own, unless you're incredibly desperate for coasters that is.
Stream the video to 'You Know My Name' HERE.
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