"With a broken neck lays my broken gift / Just like suicide"

i came into Superunknown expecting an entirely different sound, and i—perhaps understandably—was rather surprised and disappointed that it turned out to hard rock and doom metal instead of the alt rock that i was expecting. i was expecting the sound of Black Hole Sun to be prevalent throughout the album, and instead i was treated to a surprising mix of metal and alt rock that i somehow didn't end up totally hating. this does suffer from what i like to call the deltarune effect, though: i came into the album expecting something else but was greeted by an entirely different sound, and that put me off from the entire rest of the album. why do i call this the "deltarune effect"? i was an undertale kid. :p

i'll be honest. i am not a metal fan. the closest i get to listening to metal on a semi-regular basis is evanescence, korn, and a bit of linkin park from time to time. as such, the metal parts of this album really weren't my cup of tea. the entire first half of the album was incredibly samey. it felt like a massive blob of electric guitar and some admittedly impressive drum work that not only didn't but actively refused to differentiate itself from the rest of the album. this leads to an entire half of the album being super forgettable outside of one or two standout songs, kind of like the inverse of how i feel about To Pimp a Butterfly.

although i find this a pretty big problem, i do admit that it has the inverse effect of making the songs that stand out really stand out. the best songs on this album were very nice to listen to: the top three standouts for me are Black Hole Sun, The Day I Tried to Live, and Like Suicide. the entire second half of the album, everything from Black Hole Sun down, is much more my speed. this does unfortunately mean that there's a massive chunk that i don't enjoy listening to, and that makes it super hard for me to actually give the album an overall rating. For what it's worth, though, what it does well, it... well, does very well.

i'm giving Superunknown a very solid

6/10

it's got some great sound and very impressive guitar and drumwork, but the first half of the album falls completely flat in relation to the other songs on the album. it is, over all else, super early 90's. many of these songs will likely find their way onto my phoenix wright character playlist.