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Chris Cornell Plays Unreleased Song Snippet at Soundgarden Show Amid New Album Hints

Soundgarden's Chris Cornell

Soundgarden took more than 15 years between albums before releasing last year’s well-received King Animal. Fans of heavy, post-grunge rock might not have to wait that long for a follow-up.

For one thing, Soundgarden have already performed at least a snippet of new material. As Consequence of Sound points out, frontman Chris Cornell took out to his acoustic guitar to play an unreleased song onstage in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

As you can see beginning around the 3:30 mark in the video above, Cornell mostly just strums a single root chord while the band appears to begin improvising around him. “And I’ll hold you once again / So I can forget,” Cornell broods. Then they start directly into King Animal‘s “Halfway There,” so it’s possible the “song” is just a one-off interlude.

Possible, but far from certain. Cornell just told Billboard that “every time we’re in a room we’re coming up with something new.” He also said that while it’s too soon to talk about a new album just two months after King Animal, “There’s nothing stopping us from continuing to make records and continuing to play shows, that’s for sure.”

Another reason to suspect the unreleased song is new: Soundgarden didn’t leave anything on the table when they released King Animal. In December, guitarist Kim Thayil told heavy-music magazine Hails and Horns the band put it all on the record. “Everything on King Animal is what we completed,” he was quoted as saying.>

Soundgarden’s return also concides with Nirvana’s surviving members joining Paul McCartney for a song from the soundtrack to Dave Grohl’s Sundance-premiered Sound City film. Soundgarden even has in the works a Grohl-directed video involving Deadmau5. When you’ve been away for too long, it’s never too soon to come back again.

Don’t miss our profile, Animal Instinct: The Return of Soundgarden