Out of all the bands that emerged in the great Northwest craze of the early 90’s, it is my opinion that Soundgarden was the premier and strongest act of them all.
Badmotorfinger is my favorite record by them. Bidding for a popular breakthrough with their second major-label album, Soundgarden suddenly developed a sense of craft, with the result that Badmotorfinger became far and away their most fully realized album to that point.
Pretty much everything about Badmotorfinger is a step up from its predecessors -- the production is sharper and the music more ambitious, while the songwriting takes a quantum leap in focus and consistency. In so doing, the band abolishes the murky meandering that had often plagued them in the past, turning in a lean, muscular set that signaled their arrival in rock’s big leagues.
Conventional wisdom has it that despite platinum sales, Badmotorfinger got lost amidst the blockbuster success of Nevermind and Ten (all were released around the same time). But the fact is that, though they’re all great records, Badmotorfinger is much less accessible by comparison.
It’s surprisingly cerebral and arty music for a band courting mainstream metal audiences, but it attacks with scientific precision. Part of that is due to the presence of new bassist Ben Shepherd, who gives the band its thickest rhythmic foundation yet -- and, moreover, immediately shoulders the departed Hiro Yamamoto’s share of songwriting duties - and the result is the best songwriting of their entire career, Soundgarden was top notch.
’’Mind Riot’’, ’’Face Pollution’’ and ’’Jesus Christ Pose’’ all have runaway intensity while ’’Somewhere’’ is introspective, ’’Rusty Cage’’ kicks it off with some nice dirty guitar tones from Kim, and the others all contribute to a strong disc. It apparent that the whole band has greatly expanded the scope of their ambitions. And Badmotorfinger fulfills them, pulling all the different threads of the band’s sound together into a mature, confident, well-written record.
Complete with solid playing throughout--guitarist Kim Thayil is especially talented . (the guitar sounds twisted and gnarled, full of dissonant riffing, impossible time signatures, howling textural solos, and weird, droning tonalities).
The bonus EP is also excellent, filled with covers of Black Sabbath, Devo and the Rolling Stones, as well as a live song and a Chris Cornell original. If you ever see this particular 2-CD set, get it. This is heavy, challenging hard rock full of intellectual sensibility and complex band interplay. And with their next album, Soundgarden would learn how to make it fully accessible to mainstream audiences as well.
This album is higly recommended to all those who like to expand their taste for music by sampling something that’s not mainstream. Most of the tracks on this album are not nearly as catchy and ’’sing along’’ as anything ever written by Kurgt Cobain, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains or STP (Soundgarden’s so-called peers) but the songs get addictive after a couple of listens... And of course we have Cornell’s vocal strengths (the voice I would kill for).