Chris Cornell Scream Review
Soundgarden and Audioslave Vocalist Teams with Timbaland on New CD
If music is a journey, then Chris Cornell is on one awesome trip.
It’s been a long time since a rocker embraced dance beats and electronica as completely as Cornell has on his third solo studio album Scream.
Kiss did disco back in the 70’s and U2 revamped themselves several times as electronica wizards in the 90’s. But neither submitted as wholly to the genre as the “Black Hole Sun” hitmaker has with this album.
A bold move on the part of this former Seattle grunger, and one that has taken a blow from Soundgarden and Audioslave fans, and critics alike. That said, Scream grows better with repeated listens and should go down as the best new album so far this year.
Cornell Teams with Timbaland
It’s confusing how Cornell decided to hook up with dance/ hip hop studio mastermind Timbaland and his mini-me Justin Timberlake, for this album. The results of this bizarre experiment seemed sketchy, and the album was delayed several times causing further speculation.
According to reports, Timbaland wanted to veer into rock and Cornell decided to embrace electronica and dance. Just as the pairing suggests, on the bulk of the album, Cornell hangs up the guitar in favour of electronic beats and Middle Eastern Zen-ness courtesy of Timbaland that shroud Cornell’s trademark throaty vocals in a cloud of clubdom.
Time Screams
Each track on this disc bleeds into the next not unlike a dance party remix – rock fans will hate it completely, but it generally works, except on the first few track where the rhythms change little from one track to the next, making it difficult to distinguish one song from the next.
Some tracks are a complete mess, such as “Time”, which boils down to mere screeching over a dance beat, completely devoid of anything resembling melody. Cornell’s voice gets so completely lost in the mix, the howls could belong to anyone.
Part of Me
Stand out tracks include the Missy Elliott “Work It”- sounding “Sweet Revenge”, the hard dance floor killer “Get Up” opening track, the belting “Part of Me” as well as the urgent funk of drum heavy “Ground Zero”, and the interesting Eastern-influenced “Take Me Alive”.
In the second half of the album, “Enemy” keeps things hot on the techno / dance side, possibly the hardest dance song on the album, before cooling off with slow burner “Long Gone” and the extremely stripped down bluesy “Two Drink Minimum” – perhaps the only song on the album that resembles Cornell’s previous solo work.
Chris Cornell may alienate his long-time fans with this Timbaland collaboration, however, Scream proves that music knows no boundaries and even rockers can tear up a dancefloor. Even if Chris Cornell’s stint as Clubland’s newest and oddest neighbour is short-lived, it’s refreshing to see the artist try something new.
The true test of a talent comes when he takes a medium and makes it his own. With Scream, Chris Cornell should be commended for branching out and experimenting with different sounds and music instead of pumping out the same material album after album.
Scream may not be a perfect album, but it’s a fine effort if given the chance.
Chris Cornell - Scream
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