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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 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, 2012The energy level Soundgarden maintains is certainly admirable for a band whose members are all hovering around 50 years old, but this fairly narrow focus on capital-R Rock songs and little of anything else results in a homogeneity that keeps it from offering the level of depth or surprises that the band's previous albums held.
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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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Nov 27, 2012There's nothing bad about these 13 tracks, but nothing remarkable either.
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Nov 12, 2012They sound more like singer-songwriter leftovers from his solo albums than the stuff of which big rock-band comebacks are made.
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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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Nov 12, 2012Production issues aside, this record proves that Soundgarden still have their muscle but also hints that they are in the process of figuring out how to flex it again.
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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 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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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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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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MojoNov 21, 2012A mighty result. [Dec 2012, p.84]
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Nov 8, 2012King Animal would have been better had it foregone the regal pretensions and just stuck to being a feral beast. There was clearly the makings of a decent album here, but somewhere along the line it's all gone wrong.
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Nov 13, 2012All those years in Audioslave have smoothed Cornell's appealingly rough edges, and as grand as King Animal occasionally sounds, it lumbers when it should roar.
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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 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 16, 2012The group's first album since 1996 just sounds like the one they would've churned out in 1998.
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Nov 16, 2012Soundgarden pivots and parries as usual, but a better sense of dynamics is much needed to make the performances truly pop.
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Q MagazineNov 21, 2012The rest of King Animal struggles to match "Been Away Too Long" for musical flair or raw energy. [Dec 2012, p.113]
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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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Nov 13, 2012It's that old-time sludge that carries him home.
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Dec 10, 2012The album is less a triumphant return than an example of what happens to most middle-aged rock bands: They've returned as a slightly more conservative version of what made them famous in the first place.
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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 13, 2012It's neither a trainwreck nor a masterpiece, but it stirs the senses in all the right ways.
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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.
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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 12, 2012Soundgarden doesn't advance beyond reclaiming its proven strengths on King Animal, but those strengths are substantial.
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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, 2012Soundgarden's best material conjures a dense atmosphere of gloom that renders Cornell's angsty lyrics portentous and significant. But few of the songs on King Animal evoke much of anything in the way of feeling.
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UncutDec 11, 2012A welcome return. [Jan 2013, p.81]
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