King Animal is the sixth studio album by Soundgarden, their first in sixteen years since Down on the Upside (1996). The album was produced with Adam Kasper, and was released on November 13, 2012 by Seven Four Entertainment and Republic Records in the United States and by Vertigo Records in the rest of the world. King Animal was the last studio album released by Soundgarden before the death of frontman Chris Cornell in 2017 and the band’s subsequent dissolution in 2018.
In January 2010, Chris Cornell announced that, 13 years after their split, Soundgarden had reunited. The band’s first studio job was finishing the song Black Rain for the Telephantasm (2010) compilation. In February 2011, it was announced on the Soundgarden page that they had started writing new songs. A month later, recording sessions for a new album began at Studio X in Seattle.
The band reported that they had 12–14 songs that were “pretty much ready to go”, and the material on the album was “90 percent new”. One of the songs that is an updated version of an earlier idea is Taree, which bassist Ben Shepherd wrote in the late 1990s. In May 2012, the band reported that they were looking at an October release. On September 17, it was announced that the album would be titled King Animal and would be released on November 13, 2012. As Soundgarden‘s contract with A&M Records was fulfilled after releasing Telephantasm and the live album Live on I-5 (2011), Soundgarden independently produced King Animal.
Soundgarden released 3 singles in support of their King Animal album; Been Away Too Long was released on September 27, 2012, Halfway There, was released on September 3, 2013 Both it and By Crooked Steps were used in promotional spots on ESPN for Monday Night Football, and Been Away Too Long was used in an episode of Sons of Anarchy. On October 31, 2012, a video for Non State Actor was posted on Soundgarden‘s official YouTube channel, the footage consisted of an American flag waving with the King Animal logo instead of the stars. The week before its release on November 13, the entire album was free to stream on iTunes. A music video for By Crooked Steps was directed by Dave Grohl, which was released on January 29, 2013, and a music video for Halfway There was released on September 4.
Along with the standard CD, double LP and digital download releases, King Animal was also issued as a deluxe box set that included the CD with three demos as bonus tracks, the double LP, a DVD of the band’s 2012 performance at Hyde Park and five lithographs. There were several different versions of the CD release, in the US and internationally, that included various demos as bonus tracks, and for Record Store Day 2013, Soundgarden issued King Animal Demos, a limited edition pink vinyl collecting all six demos on a single throw. Later in 2013, King Animal Plus was released, which included five live tracks recorded for Live from the Artists Den at The Wiltern in Los Angeles and an acoustic version of Halfway There that Cornell and Shepherd recorded for CIMX-FM in Detroit.
The album cover and subsequent art direction is based on a sculpture titled Night of the Last Equinox by Josh Graham, whom Thayil sought out after seeing the artwork Graham had done for his band A Storm of Light. Featuring animal skulls above a field of flowers in a snowy forest, the sculpture features a recurring motif of Graham‘s art: the juxtaposition of life and death and how “everything in between is a huge part of the condition.” human”. Thayil revealed that the band requested art that featured white and other lighter colors, as “most of our album covers have had a darker palette.”
In the United States, King Anmal debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200 chart after selling 83,000 copies during its first week of release. This was the third highest position Soundgarden achieved on the chart, behind Superunknown (1994), which reached No. 1, and Down on the Upside (1996), which reached No. 2. As of November 2016, King Animal has sold 235,000 copies in the US.
Internationally, the album reached the top five of the New Zealand and Danish album charts; the top ten of the Canadian, Australian, Swiss, German and Finnish charts; the top twenty of the Norwegian, Irish, Italian and Austrian charts; and the top thirty of the British, Spanish, Dutch, Scottish and Swedish charts.
Tracklist:
- Been Away Too Long
- Non-State Actor
- By Crooked Steps
- A Thousand Days Before
- Blood on the Valley Floor
- Bones of Birds
- Taree
- Attrition
- Black Saturday
- Halfway There
- Worse Dreams
- Eyelid’s Mouth
- Rowing
Deluxe Edition CD, Digital Download and Box Set bonus tracks
- Worse Dreams (Demo)
- Black Saturday (Demo)
- By Crooked Steps (Demo)
Soundgarden
Chris Cornell: vocals, guitar; piano (6), mandolin (7), producer, additional recording
Kim Thayil: lead guitar; mandolin (4), horn arrangements (4, 9), producer
Ben Shepherd: bass guitar; additional guitar (7, 8), baritone guitar (8), backing vocals (8), producer
Matt Cameron: drums, percussion; Moog synthesizer (5 and 12), backing vocals (8), producer
Additional musicians
Adam Kasper: piano (6), tambura (4), producer
Jeff McGrath: trumpet (4 and 9)
Greg Powers: tenor and bass trombones (4 and 9)
Brad Stevens: tenor and baritone saxophones (9)
Bubba Dupree: stun guitar (8)
Bullet: additional vocals (9)
Mike McCready: additional guitar (12)
Technical personnel
Joe Barresi: mixing, additional production
Nate Yaccino: engineer
Sam Hofstedt: engineer
Josh Evans: engineer, studio assistant
Jay Follette: studio assistant
Neil Hundt: studio assistant
Gregg Keplinger: studio assistant
Jun Murakawa: mixing assistant
Ted Jensen: mastering
Josh Graham: album cover sculpture (The Last Equinox), album cover photography and design
Don Vancleave: band photography
Chris Cornell (July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017).
