Incredibly this album can celebrate its 25 year anniversary this year. How time flies. Back in 94 I was not the biggest follower of the rather shortlived grunge wave, but soundgarden was a bit of an exception.
Vocalist Chris Cornell has a uniquely hoarse and powefull voice that fits so well with the style and the overall expression of the bands soundscape. What I remember as the turn off about grunge was this tendency to depressive and muted sound, but Soundgarden seemed to mix it with a sense of playfulness and energy, that raises it above your average grungy band
If you hear this band for the first time and think they sound a bit like Black Sabbath, you are right. In a track like Mailman, the slow pounding tuned down guitar, is a an obvious inspiration but I honestly find this inspirational, as very few bands have succesfully used BS as an inspiration and got away with it, without sounding like a total ripoff
If you think they sound a bit like Led Zeppelin at times, you would be right. In a track like Superunknown, Cornell sings deliberately in a way that resembles Robert Plant while the structure and playing style overall could be taken out of a Zep album
Off course the album has the huge MTV hit Black Hole Sun and it is a really great, slow psych rocker with a fine chorus and all. But the strength of Superunknown as an album is its high quality throughout. There are literally no fillers here. A few of the last tracks are slightly weaker than the high average quality. It is quite diverse and sprawling with little ideas here and there while all still sticking to the general style all the way through
This is by far my favorite “grunge” album and one you should definately check out if you are in the wild about this band or grunge as a whole.
10/10