710 Audioslave - Audioslave (2002)

Studio Album - Hard Rock

About the Act:

Audioslave were a rock supergroup from California, formed in 2001 from the singer and rhythm guitarist of Soundgarden (Chris Cornell) and three members of Rage Against The Machine. They existed for seven years, produced three albums, and have had a reunion or two later on.

About the Album:

This was their first album. Some critics loved it, some were very scathing.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

I've read some stuff about the criticism some critics levelled at this album. In a nutshell, they complained it was too "over-produced". So I'll say right now, I don't feel that this is a weakness.

Let's try to do some description. There are two electric guitars, a bass and drums, and singing. They are very proud of the fact that everything you hear comes from that. They symptoms of hard rock are all over this. The voice, the overdriven guitars, the drum sounds used, the harmonic structures, and most of all the times when the two guitars and the bass are all playing the same riff, which is a very "Metal" thing to do. In many ways they sound like Led Zeppelin, especially the first track which starts sounding like "Whole Lotta Love".  Then the other thing they do is the quiet/loud contrast which Nirvana did so effectively. There are also bits that are almost Black Sabbath, and some metal vocal stylings.

Sound-wise, I like the heaviest bits the best, and actually I like the production. The quieter sections are generally less engaging for me, but overall I would say this is a surprisingly good rock album. One interesting aspect is the guitar solos which are mostly quite unusual, sometimes very few notes, but lots of special effects, not just in terms of processing, but in unusual playing to get odd sounds. This is probably the USP of the album.  The vocals are really strong, Chris has two voices, high and loud, and lower and quieter. They are both very well controlled, he really does have a large range and technically excellent delivery. It helps that it is always obvious exactly what note he is singing, and you can hear well-controlled variations, vibrato, slides, tweaks and so on.

I have some minor complaints.

Firstly, the lyrics and vocal delivery is a bit soulless, I don't really believe the lyrics are much more than some rock clichés or mean much beyond something to sing. A lot of rock is like this to be honest. It's also a bit over-repetitive at times.

Secondly, the quiet, low vocals are very nasal, a style used in American Rock quite a bit - Pearl Jam, Metallica and Nickelback come to mind. It mildly irritates me, and makes the vocals harder to work out (the loud/high mode is much easier to parse). You get  lot of note and not much in the way of consonants.

Thirdly, while I like the oddness of the special-effected solos, some of them are very much one or two notes, and as such are a bit dull.

Lastly, and maybe this is because so many albums on this list are pre-CD, but it feels like a long album. 65 minutes. Drop a couple of the weaker tracks off and it would be a stronger album for it.

Having got those off my chest, I would still say I enjoyed it, and it's a nice driving album.

7.2/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/293aYSIVNjjmkAwupnlxRd

YouTube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audioslave_(album)

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audioslave_(album)