Superunknown

I personally would not call it a "perfect" album, due to yet again several tunes losing their great riffs halfway through, but this is unquestionably one of the most solid modern-day hard rock albums that you're likely to find. The songwriting and performances are absolutely astonishing, with the tunes switching from 5/4 to 7/4 to 8/4 without the listener even noticing because the melodies are so darned creative and well developed! Sexcellent production too - heavy as hell throughout but thick with added-in leads, different guitar tones and - man she just SHIMMERS, she do!

The hit shingles were "Fell On Black Days" (performed in 6/4 time), "Spoonman" (performed in 7/4 time), "The Day I Tried To Live" (performed in, ah, 15/8 time, I think?) and "Black Hole Sun" (performed in 4/4 time, the sellouts!!!). And if you weren't in the know, you'd be hard-pressed to guess that all three songs were by the same band if not for the wailing cheetah cry of David Kennedy or whoever the lead singer is. Becousin this isn't all grunge. It's heavy, diverse hard rock. There are psychedelic guitar tones and effects in some songs. Others are light-textured undistorted sorrow tracks. A few are stomach-tumblingly slow thunderballs of doom. Still others KICK YOUR ASS!!! But there's not a bad song on here. Maybe the sole punk rock tune "Kickstand" and the odd acoustic experimental track "Half" could've used a bit more (note to self: add intelligent-sounding synonym for "development" here before you send the review to Rich Bunnell for posting), but that's not much complainin' on an album with this much to enjoy. Lovers of thick-bassed groovy tunes UNTIE!