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Moving on from Audioslave Cornell has a new project that’s both a step back to his past but also a step forward to what should be a bright future as a singer/songwriter. “Carry On” is a great collection of songs by Cornell that allow him to be far more artistic than his days in Audioslave and maybe even in Soundgarden. There are a lot of bad-ass songs on here like the first single (technically) “No Such Thing”, which has a chorus that reminds the listener of old school Soundgarden stuff, but has a verse that’s more developed vocally and more mature than the Soundgarden stuff from the late nineties. The other bad-ass song on the album is the other single “She’ll Never Be Your Man.” Nobody really write songs like this anymore. It’s a rock song with some heavy blues beats and grooves on it. It’s outstanding. That being said, those two songs aren’t anywhere close to the best songs on the album and they were both bad choices as singles. The best songs on the album come in at tracks 3 and 4. Track 3 “Arms Around Your Love” is a track that’s entirely reminiscent of Cornell’s late work in Soundgarden and during his first stint as a solo artist. The song is hands down the best track on the album because while “No Such Thing” and “She’ll Never Be Your Man” are both great tracks you don’t get that feeling of raw emotion like you do with “Arms Around Your Love.” That same thing can be said with “Safe and Sound” Cornell’s bluesy voice shows more range than ever and really shines through on the track. Expect somebody somewhere to smarten up in the next couple of months when this isn’t doing as well as they want, to introduce one of these tracks to the softer formats for Top 40 placement, (think AAA, AC and Hot-AC.) While there are a couple of bad tracks on Cornell’s second solo effort (the Michael Jackson cover of Billy Jean is atrocious, I can’t say a good thing about it), for the most part this is genius. If you’ve been a fan of Soundgarden, Audioslave, and in general just of Cornell’s you will love this album. Cornell’s fan base can be happy with the effort, and there’s a strong possibility he could gain a lot more fans with a record that’s as good as this.