CHRIS CORNELL - Carry On - 2007 - Album review

CHRIS CORNELL – Carry On – 2007 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Poison Eye – Ghosts - Today
SOUNDBITE: I have an injury/ It's there for all to see...
RATING: 2/5
Chris Cornell has indisputably one of the greatest voices in modern rock and as always it is much in evidence on this new solo album - which is just as well - as he evidently forgot to pack many decent tunes when he cleared out of Audioslave. Yes, the driving force behind two big rock bands of the modern era has had a brain fart but then in a career as long and successful as Cornell’s I suppose it happens from time to time. Anyone who’s been to see Casino Royale (and that’s a fair amount of people) will have heard You Know My Name - it’s alright and he was quite an interesting choice to provide a soundtrack and you might have hoped that unconstrained by the need to do something Bond-ish, he would knock up a decent solo effort. Furthermore Cornell is a man who has shown time and again that he can continue to come up with classic tunes – it’s not like the creative juices have dwindled and gradually dried up or anything over time. But here he is with Carry On - not a particularly positive title - evoking as it does - a sense of stoically proceeding against the odds rather than joy at escaping the grating sound of Tom Morello’s worst guitar-torturing excesses. Still – I digress – ah yes – the tunes. Any concerns that there won’t be any opportunities to ‘throw out the horns’ are put to rest by the almost Iron Maidenesque No Such Thing but then – I’ve never liked ‘Maiden’. Poison Eye is much more successful riffage and one of only a few tracks that stood out initially as having a half-memorable hook. But you knew a solo effort wasn’t all going to be loud – and when former alt-rockers do ‘mellow’ there’s a danger they might sound a little bit conventional. Safe and Sound is alright for about a bar and then just seems to take every possible wrong chord-turn imaginable. I suppose Cornell might have been tired of writing tunes he considers predictable and wanted to push the envelope a little bit but every time you think you know where the track is going it perversely morphs into any Bryan Adams’ song you can think of. Ghosts is a melodic slice of folky alt-rock that again gives a glimpse of what might have been expected but then we get another one - Your Soul Today - which is initially an uplifting bantam-weight metal track with a shiny poppy edge that wilfully proceeds to throw itself off the bridge of decent rock and into the smelly waters of Bryan Adams again. You wouldn’t find this happening with other great grunge survivor Mark Lanegan. Actually – there is a very post-Screaming Trees Lanegan-esque track on here in the shape of Silence The Voices - but then I was here to hear Cornell not Lanegan. Surprisingly Cornell’s cover of Billie Jean (yes, really) isn’t the worst thing on here – but the world doesn’t really need Michael Jackson to sound like Nickleback. Man – I’m so not going to be his myspace friend anymore. Ah well. Today’s syncopated rhythms provide a final sense of what I might have expected on such an LP but it’s the penultimate track and by then the damage has been done. Chris – you’re still a rock legend and I have every expectation of hearing wicked stuff from you again – but as one of the worst bosses I’ve ever had once said to another in my hearing – ‘Sometimes you’re the pigeon – and sometimes you’re the statue.’
Out now.
Listen to Chris Cornell - Carry On