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Dec 21, 2012King Animal bucks the trend by being reasonably good. It is unquestionably a Soundgarden album, and far better than anyone had a right to expect.
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UncutDec 11, 2012A welcome return. [Jan 2013, p.81]
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Kerrang!Dec 10, 2012In an era when so many classic bands return to tout but without risking new material, it's a delight to have Soundgarden take that gamble and win. [17 Nov 2012, p.52]
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MagnetDec 4, 2012A backhanded compliment, sure, but really--things could have been so much worse. [No. 93, p.61]
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Nov 29, 2012King Animal doesn't hit as hard as their really early material, but it's well-paced.
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MojoNov 21, 2012A mighty result. [Dec 2012, p.84]
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Nov 21, 2012Whilst this beast will satisfy the ravenous converted, skeptics are set to remain agnostic.
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Nov 16, 2012Soundgarden made an album here, with all sorts of internal connections and deliberate emotional ebbs and flows.
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Nov 15, 2012Other than 'Been Away Too Long' there are no obvious singles here. Rather, each track takes on a propulsive and seductive weight far greater than the sum of its parts when listened to in succession.
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Nov 15, 2012King Animal doesn't sound like a nostalgia-fed cash grab, nor is it poisoned by the desperate commercialism of Cornell's post-Soundgarden projects.
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Nov 14, 2012This is a surprisingly strong reunion, one that puts the band back on the track they abandoned long ago.
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Nov 13, 2012As an album King Animal remains a somewhat numbing listen, its components, as excellent as they individually often are, making for a rather wearing collective, undeniably muscular but curiously unmemorable.
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Nov 13, 2012While this record lacks the canonizing tracks like "Jesus Christ Pose," "Black Hole Sun," "Spoonman" and "Burden in My Hand," Soundgarden deserves to be commended for recapturing the feeling of grunge and reintroducing it today.
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Nov 13, 2012It's neither a trainwreck nor a masterpiece, but it stirs the senses in all the right ways.
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Nov 13, 2012It's that old-time sludge that carries him home.
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Nov 12, 2012Soundgarden doesn't advance beyond reclaiming its proven strengths on King Animal, but those strengths are substantial.
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Nov 8, 2012Their first new album since 1996 makes a surprisingly good fist of plugging back into the sound that made them the moodiest and heaviest of the Seattle grunge bands.
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Nov 8, 2012King Animal undeniably draws its strength from the band's accessible Superunknown era, but also takes Soundgarden somewhere fresh.
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Entertainment WeeklyNov 8, 2012[Skip tepid "Been Away Too Long"] to the latter half, home of the Stonesian psych flourishes ("Attrition")and a bluesy power ballad. [9/16 Nov 2012, p.98]
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Nov 8, 2012It's right in line with the band's natural progression; so much so that it's almost difficult to believe it didn't come out a decade ago.
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Nov 8, 2012On the whole, King Animal is a welcome return, and though it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it reminds us why these guys were considered the architects of the Seattle scene.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 71 out of 82
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Mixed: 7 out of 82
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Negative: 4 out of 82
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Nov 13, 2012
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Nov 13, 2012
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Nov 13, 2012