By James Ballinger
An announcement from the Harkonen camp came out earlier this week, with the big news of the band reuniting for three shows to showcase the Brutal Panda label. Ready for the big bum out? These will only be East Coast shows. The shows will take place starting June 14th in Boston, Brooklyn and Philadelphia respectively. Chicago’s The Atlas Moth and Atlanta’s Whores will support all dates, while each show will have a different special guest such as Zozobra, Ladder Devils, and one yet announced. Both The Atlas Moth and Whores are extremely worth checking out on their own, and I’d love to see this bill make it out to the West Coast. The icing on the cake is that Harkonen’s 2002 album “Shake Harder Boy” (produced by Matt Bayles) will be repressed on vinyl exclusively for these shows.
Soundgarden has finally unleashed some new material after reforming in 2010, and for the first time in 15 years you’ll hear something completely new. “Live to Rise”, the bands first offering, will appear on the “Avengers” movie soundtrack, due out May 1st. While the fan reaction is mixed, the interesting thing about it is that it almost sounds eerily like what could have followed the bands last record 1996’s “Down on the Upside”. No throwback nostalgia here, just a track that sounds like the band has been frozen in time. Rarely do reformed bands sound as if they are picking up where they left off, so if you liked where Soundgarden was headed, this is most definitely for you. Sadly, the rest of the soundtrack is what you’d expect from a big budget superhero action flick soundtrack, with tracks by Papa Roach, Bush, and other radio friendly bro-rock juggernauts appearing on the release.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTrDzajvSBk?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
In other Soundgarden related news, the world’s first (and only?) all-female Soundgarden tribute band “Bleed Together” (insert tasteless menstrual joke here)has their very first show this Monday April 9th at Neumos in Capitol Hill. The Seattle group formed in late 2011, and has a few demos of material on their websitewww.bleedtogether.com.
