Chris Cornell – Euphoria Morning
Album Review by Adam McCann
Label : A&M Records
Year : 1999
Sweet Euphoria
In the time following the dissolution of Soundgarden and the formation of Audioslave, Chris Cornell took a step into a solo career – a move that in the future would pay dividends, but in 1999 Cornell released ‘Euphoria Morning’ which although generated a small buzz at the time, quickly disappeared into a niche release.
This was unfortunate as ‘Euphoria Morning’ showed a different side to Cornell. Everyone knew that Cornell had a decent set of pipes, evident in Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog, but ‘Euphoria Morning’ showed something a little different, the album manages to fuse acoustic rock with folk and psychedelia and it just works so well. At times, the album feels like Cornell is living out his Beatles fantasies with tracks such as ‘Can’t Change Me’, ‘Flutter Girl’ and the ‘Across the Universe’ stylings of ‘Preaching the End of the World’ with the notion that Cornell used albums like ‘Revolver’ and ‘Rubber Soul’ as a starting point and with ‘Euphoria Morning’, they are done justice.
In fact, Chris Cornell excels himself on this album, without the constraints of Soundgarden, he is able to show off just how good his voice actually is. ‘When I’m Down’ is a beautiful haunting blues track that deserves a hell of a lot more attention, whilst ‘Wave Goodbye’ is a fantastic funky tribute to Jeff Buckley who died two years prior to the release of the album with ‘Mission’ easily able to fit amongst Temple of the Dog’s catalogue.
There are some rather forgetful songs here though, all appearing at the latter end of the album. However, as unrecallable as these tracks are, they do not sully the album, rather than petering out, these songs help the album ebb and flow towards its end. ‘Euphoria Morning’ is a quiet polaroid snapshot of Chris Cornell doing something a little different and you know what? He’s bloody good at it.
Rating : 78/100
MHF Magazine/Adam McCann
