Singles Bar | OMR Reviews April 27th

This week’s Singles Bar – new releases from Soundgarden and Graham Coxon.

This week, the staff of One More Robot magazine look at the latest releases from some nineties alt-rock stalwarts…

Soundgarden – ‘Live to Rise’
[A&M]
★★☆☆☆

Soundgarden are back! If that statement fills you with joy you should probably adjust your expectations. ‘Live to Rise’ is their first newly recorded song in well over a decade and, while it isn’t particularly bad, it lacks any real urgency or excitement. The track starts with a tasty enough riff but instead of taking to the skies the song lurches into life like a busted old automobile. The bright spot is front man Chris Cornell’s vocals which are suitably moody during the verses and impassioned during the chorus. But Cornell can’t rescue the song from being mostly workmanlike and forgettable.

‘Live to Rise’ is the lead single from the Avengers Assemble soundtrack but it doesn’t capture the excitement of earth’s mightiest heroes joining forces to combat space demons. It’s more suitable to soundtrack a documentary about swans, or something. – Jesse Melia

Graham Coxon – ‘What’ll It Take’
[Parlophone]
★★★★☆

After the serious English acoustic folk of his last album, it’s back to basics for the Blur guitar botherer and noise merchant. So that’ll be choppy guitar and two or three phrases repeated again and again over a foot tapping beat, along with a dash of synth to keep things fresh. Made to order for some primitive indie disco where a third chord is considered an extravagance, it’s crude, simple fun. “What’ll it take to make you people dance?” he asks. Good question. This song might. Second question: can you imagine Graham Coxon on a dancefloor? – Ruraidh Conlon O’Reilly