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Chris Cornell's latest album is released, and as usual, the audience is divided between those who are curious to listen to it again and those who don't care and want to remember him when he was raging and dazzling in Soundgarden and, to a lesser extent, given the temporary and provisional nature of the project, in Temple Of The Dog. Let's be honest: if over the years good Chris has alienated a good portion of the public, it's not entirely without his faults. Starting from his solo debut, “Euphoria Morning” in 1999, for a good decade he kept banging his head continuously on solo works and full-band projects (Audioslave) that were not exactly thrilling. The fact is, okay, let “Euphoria Morning” and “Carry On” pass, let the parenthesis with Tom Morello and company pass, but if after so much forgivable modesty you follow up with an absolutely unforgivable failed abortion of an album like “Scream,” you're kind of asking for it! Yet, he rolled up his sleeves and resurrected his first creation, Soundgarden, at the beginning of 2011 (considered by many to be a purely commercial move, not unjustly, but so be it...), and with it, he produced an album, “King Animal,” which is certainly not a masterpiece, but nonetheless contains some occasional signs of recovery from Our Man. Now he has (momentarily) returned to his own, and on September 18 he released this “Higher Truth.”
I wasn't entirely convinced after the first listen: I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it and feared that subsequent listens wouldn't change my mind. And yet, I almost immediately felt the need to listen to it again, and then again and again until I said to myself, “could it be that past 50, Chris has made his best solo album?” Already the single “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” is commendable, even if stylistically misleading, with its alternative pop charming and carefree. Indeed, the album is dominated by an absorbed, evocative, and elegant country-folk, characterized by crystalline arpeggios of acoustic guitar and a writing that is certainly fluid but never conventional, enriched by influences of r'n'b and soul, especially in certain tonal changes and in the voice, here more subdued and discreet compared to the past. The choice to entrust the rhythm to loops by Chris himself and a small drum set played by the producer, the unavoidable Brendan O'Brien, is disconcerting at first glance, only to reveal itself as a fitting choice and in step with the times, minimal yet effective (“Dead Wishes” is a great example). Beautiful, introspective, and moving songs, imbued with a very “middle-age” melancholy that for once doesn't spark embarrassment but rather empathy for the willingness to face the ghosts of the past and the inexorability of advancing time. The absolute best is “Through The Window”, worthy of the best Stephen Stills, and tears are held back with great difficulty, but also the tender and lovable country-pop lilt à la Graham Nash “Only These Words”, dedicated to his daughters, knows how to move. Our Man is pleasing even when he goes off the beaten path, as, for example, in the title track, with its tasty 90s brit-pop feel. What perhaps does not entirely benefit "Higher Truth" is its slowness, which certainly does not make it the classic album to listen to all at once. Perhaps better in small doses since the songs taken individually are worth a lot. Perhaps one could do without “Our Time In The Universe”, a mediocre and dispensable raga-pop, which, maybe because of its “orientalizing” or the title, has sparked improbable comparisons with the Beatles by certain press. If one really wants to search for the Fab Four, better then in a “Circling” with delightful Lennon-esque touches.
The deluxe version contains four additional tracks, at least the sorrowful and bluesy “Wrong Side” would have deserved a worthy placement in the official lineup, while it is right for “Bend In The Road” to remain a second choice, where Chris resurrects his sporadic complex-of-inferiority-for-being-white and dives headlong into a gospel that wants to be solemn and sincere but ends up being rhetorical and unconvincing (a bit like what happened in “When I'm Down” in “Euphoria Morning”).
Anyway, considering the pros and (few) cons, ultimately yes, Chris has truly made his best solo album. It may be that his benchmarks are neither “Pink Moon” nor “Highway 61 Revisited,” but so be it...
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