Analyzing the Metalness of Soundgarden

I considered doing a post last week that would tackle both Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, but my feelings for AIC are much stronger and I felt they deserved their own post. A "new" Soundgarden track has been recently released on the radio that will appear on some upcoming compilation album or other. I put "new" in quotes because it was actually an outtake from Badmotorfinger.

I have explained on a few occasions that I was getting into music heavily when grunge was popular and that I was a little different than some of my peers in that I latched onto Alice in Chains and Soundgarden when they latched onto Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Soundgarden was not quite as much of a change as their later material stripped away some of their more metal influences, but at the beginning, they were very clearly a stoner/doom metal band. By the time the massively successful Superunknown was released, they were mostly a hard rock band with minimal metal influences, but up until that time, they were very heavy.

Unfortunately I don't have much of their material pre-dating Badmotorfinger because it's a little tough to find, or I haven't really looked much, but that's okay because I feel Badmotorfinger presents Soundgarden at their best and is clearly a metal album on its own.

BADMOTORFINGER
Stoner doom was not nearly as prevalent at the time this album was released, but if it were, this would fall neatly into the genre.

The album starts off with the upbeat tempo of "Rusty Cage" with an extremely heavy bass riff and featuring the Sabbath/Zeppelin-like guitar riffs the band built its principal sound upon. "Outshined" features a massive riff during the verses. "Slaves & Bulldozers" is another slow-burning, psychedelic metal track. "Jesus Christ Pose" is the most infamous song on the album for starting off a censorship battle. It's also the most metal song on the album with a bit of a galloping bass riff. "Room a Thousand Years Wide" is my favorite track off of the album and starts with a primal scream from Chris Cornell. It features a grinding doomy riff and some pained vocals from Cornell, it even features a saxophone solo at the end. Good stuff. "Drawing Flies" has equal parts punk and metal in it, with a metallic riff played at punk speeds. "Holy Water" features a distorted bluesy riff that sounds as if it would have been at home on the first Sabbath album, or something by Trouble at least. "New Damage" closes things out with another doomy track.

There are some songs on here that are not as metal. "Face Pollution" is for the most part a punk song. "Somewhere" is just a slow rock song. "Searching With My Good Eye Closed" is a little more uptempo but still is more clearly a stoner rock song than a metal one. "Mind Riot" is another slower track.

Based on this album alone, I would classify Soundgarden as a metal band, due to their heavy riffs that are clearly influenced by doom metal bands like Black Sabbath. They add some psychedelic touches and stoner influences, but remain a metal band. There is a stoner doom subgenre, and this band seems to fit. Their earlier material is even closer to doom metal while their later material strips much of it away.