1 keeper
keeper avg .111
Though this album was kind of a big deal back in the day would it really be remembered any more than Therapy? or Catherine Wheel were it not for the morbid and disturbing stop-motion videos on MTV (I too thought they were pretty far-out man)? Subtract those attention-grabbing images and most of the album is as mono-chromatic as the primitive computer-generated album cover. From the first drop-D riff of "Intolerance" it's the simple equation of Stone Temple Pilots grunge + Nine Inch Nails lyrical button-pushing = this is gonna be huge. After a few listens I realized that riffs like the main ones on "Intolerance", "Bottom", "Swamp Song", and "Flood" are all over STP's Core, which came out about 6 months prior, not to mention that Soundargen had been doing this kind of stuff for years (listen all the chugging or fiddle-y riffs on "Prison Sex", "Swamp Song", "Undertow", and 4 degrees, which is almost every remaining song on the album). If you think I'm nit-picking tell me how "Crawl Away" isn't virtually indistinguishable from "Wicked Garden" (though 6 months isn't enough time to have been a direct influence). All that's missing is a single pop hook that both STP and NIN had in spades, or Soundgarden's musicianship, that is any band member of above-average skill except for drummer Danny Carey. Not to be obvious but the single "Sober"**** does have some originality, nixing the grunge-chugging for creepily howling or droning guitar riffs, as well as one of the first examples I can recall of that dirty-percussive treble-y bass as the intro (which would be big in the 90's and sound awesome in the middle of Beastie Boys "Sabotage" a couple years later). Also, 4 degrees is a good example of a more melodic riffing that would become more apparent on "Stinkfist" on the next album. But when "Flood' milks the same plodding riff for over 4 minutes like it's some big deal it's not a good sign. The one place where the band nails the combination of menace, dynamics, and tension is closing track "Disgustipated"; though it doesn't really aspire to be a song it's the only really compelling 4 minutes of the album, slowly evolving from a creepy tribal chant "this is necessary this is necessary life feeds on life life feeds on life" to a horrifying sensory assault of punishing percussion and Maynard James Keenan's animal howl.
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