Magnetic Eye Records has done it again. They’ve pulled together some of the most intriguing and accomplished artists of the heavy underground to pay tribute to a legendary album. The last go-round, it was Alice in Chains that got the redux treatment, and now attention is turned to their Seattle peers, the one and only SOUNDGARDEN.

It’s no secret that Soundgarden has been influential on many of the musicians featured. Indeed, upon this writer, as well. Their 1995 classic Superunknown established the band’s visionary songwriting and instrumentation, and Soundgarden delivered such a virtuosic performance on the album, one wonders how it can be covered at all.

With that said, these are not merely covers, they are loving reinterpretations. In the case of Italian juggernaut Ufomammut, their rendition of “Let Me Drown” is a ghostly allusion to the late Chris Cornell.

“My Wave” has played out as a kind of grab-it-and-go philosophy of life for me for decades now, its lyrics rejecting that urgent fanaticism that makes us all anxious to parent one another. “Hate if you want to hate, pray if you want to pray, don’t come over here [and] piss on my gate, save it just keep it off my wave.” High Priest takes the song and elevates it to a place of mystical glory.

If you loved the original album, this won’t replace it and you may even feel that some of the songs are uncoverable and “Fell on Black Days” is one of them, namely for how personally the lyrics relate to Cornell. On the other hand, sometimes a song is so good that it begs to be loved by another artist. Chosen for this song: Marissa Nadler, an American singer-songwriter who has been widely praised for her Gothic stylings and sanguine sound. Here, it feels as if we really did drown after the opening track and we’re hearing the song sung from the ocean depths.

I was excited to see Chicago Doomed & Stoned Festival alumni Somnuri tackling “Mailman,” as it’s an ideal fit for their temperament. It’s such a seething, lonely song about betrayal and revenge, but I’ve visited it many times in my life. The Brooklyn trio does a fantastic job with it, with vocals that are powerful in their own right and a few menacing touches (the later contrast of clean and dirty vox, for example).

Valley of the Sun takes “Superunknown” for a spin with a certain low-riding desert rock energy and vocals that admirably reach for those famous soaring highs. There are even some Doors-esque organ highlights that seemed perfectly in place, proving how a good song can transcend its original arrangement.

“Head Down” is a song that perfectly captures the apathetic resignation of deep depression. Frayle hone in on the sparseness of the composition with searching guitar riffing and a creepy, haunted vocal performance that brings alive the pernicious voices of doubt and fear (“We see you laugh, we see you dance, we take that away everyday”).

“Black Hole Sun” is another I was skeptical about, but Spotlights have really won me over with their version of it. The contrast of soft singing and strumming guitar and bass was compelling in itself, but the band doubles down on awesome with crackling, fuzzy low-end during the verses and entrancing vocal harmonies. At times, I may prefer this to the original (and that’s partly because I don’t want that great song to be spoiled by over-familiarity)

I really like what Horseburner does with the famous “Spoonman.” Once again, a confident reinterpretation that showcases the band’s strengths, namely gnarly guitar, low-end heft, and earthy, roaring vocals. I was happy to hear the contrasting section of both strumming and dueling strings and some bad-ass drumming.

“Limo Wreck” is a great example of why I think of Soundgarden as doom first, and all other genre distinctions second. It’s a dismal affair and Chris Cornell’s performance is once again inimitable and, frankly, carries this slow ‘n’ low ballad. Thankfully, Witch Mountain was chosen for the job and Kayla Dixon’s knack for dramatic story-telling helps in convincing us.

Beastwars have successfully remolded “The Day I Tried to Live,” one of my least favorite songs on the original album, into something I really enjoyed. It’s unhinged, agitated, and beastly. Howling Giant stole the show on the AIC Redux with their incredible “Rooster” (our Song of the Year in 2020), and Beastwars comes damned closed to doing it with this one. Their performance is really something else, laying on the Soundgarden worship on thick and projecting something monstrously terrific.

Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows do much the same with “Kickstand” turning this quick and dirty song into a dreamy psychedelic space rocker that mines the sound for undiscovered emotion. Another cut that elevates the music into something epic, even ethereal.

The Age of Truth summons a heroic sound, transforming “Fresh Tendrils” with sterling chords and rampaging drums. Meanwhile, Marc Urselli’s SteppenDoom give us an eerie rendition, not as caustic as Thou’s celebrated cover, though the vocal approach is at times quite grizzly. The whole experience is like a warped VHS soundtrack, with spooky whistling sounds as if to suggest the hearing of the wind.

I was so happy to see Dozer on the list, especially after the success of their recent album which has pushed the band forward artistically in many ways. They turn this odd little number into a bonafide stadium rager.

Without doubt, “Like Suicide” is one of the most emotionally honest and tragic songs on the record. If I recall the lore correctly, Chris Cornell said this song was inspired by a bird who had a fatal encounter with a sliding glass door, as if an omen. No one can really match the intensity of the original performance, of course, so Darkher had the idea of turning it into a blurry-eyed and beautifully stoic reflection.

While nothing can replace the genius of the original Superunknown, this collection is nonetheless quite welcome and I’m sure choice cuts will show up on playlists of mine. Now I’m ready to check out the Best of Soundgarden, which follows a similar format, without being glued fastidiously to any one album.

Give ear…

I’ve long been fascinated by the musical history of the Appalachian Mountains. The legacy of riffmaking and ‘shine bleeds into the present day, with a robust scene that encompasses a number of states, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, The Carolinas, and The Virginias. There’s a distinct sound that’s developed, especially in the heavy underground of doom metal and stoner rock. One noteable example is HORSEBURNER.

I first happened upon the Parkersburg, West Virginia four-piece in '16, during a roaring performance at Doomed Stoned Festival (documented in my film later in this piece). The excitement of that night, the first major event we’d ever attempted, was electric. Coming from Oregon, I was very excited to experience this swath of midwest and east coast doom metal and stoner rock: Brimstone Coven, Belzefuzz, Pale Divine, Demon Eye, Foghound, Toke, so many greats!

Suffice it to say, Horseburner left an impression, not only that snowy November weekend, but with the three records that came in the months and years before: 'Dirty City’ (2009), 'Strange Giant’ (2013), and 'Dead Seed, Barren Soil’ (2016). Most remarkable of all, Horseburner has remained remarkably cohesive in their line-up, with original members Adam Nohe (drums, vox), Jack Thomas (guitar, vox), and Zach Kaufman (guitar) still in the line-up and jamming for the better part of a decade together. Last year, they were joined by bassist Seth Bostick.

Today, Shawn Gibson visits with Adam Nohe as the band ventures further into the future, with an upcoming performance scheduled for Firebreather Festival in Indy this April.

What’s up Adam?

Not a whole lot. Wife’s making dinner and I’m waiting for the guys to get here for practice.

Awesome, I appreciate your time! Horseburner, Toke, and several other bands are going to play a festival in April?

Yeah, Firebreather. It’s going to be pretty cool.

So who all is playing?

I’d have to look at the list again. I know we’re playing. I know my buddy Drew, who’s putting this whole thing together, his band Archarus is on the bill. We’ve done some short tours with them and we’re going to be doing a couple more shows this spring.

That should be awesome!

Telekinetic Yeti is also playing, along with Greenbeard, Heavy Temple, who I love (those girls kill it), and Stonecutters from Kentucky, who we’ve done some touring with.

I’ve heard of 'em.

Dude, they’re crazy! They’re like technical death metal with heavy stoner rock, just this great mix of a bunch of different heavy styles.

I’ll have to check em out!

Howling Giant, The Mound Builders, who’re really cool, Super Moon, Void King – yeah, that’s the line up. It’s going to be a pretty killer show.

Sounds like it!

I assumed you were in the Midwest, the Indiana or Illinois scene, because you’re asking about this show? We played the first Doomed and Stoned in Indiana!

Very nice! I’m the Savannah, Georgia area, interested in the North Carolina, South Carolina scenes, especially. Working on 'Doomed and Stoned in The Carolinas’ compilation to showcase doom-stoner bands there, in fact.

Awesome! There’s some really, really good bands in that area. There’s one called Temptation’s Wings that’s pretty cool.

I know those dudes! Great guys.

Yeah, they are! Jason from Temptation’s Wings asked us to play Steel and Stone Festival. That was probably the last time we were in Asheville. There’s a band down there called Made Of Machines which is really cool. I don’t know if they’re stoner, really, but they’re like fucking intense, hard, and heavy – like, it’s cool.

What are some bands you like to listen to or play with in West Virginia and the surrounding area?

Ah, man, I hate questions like this 'cause I know I’m gonna leave people out and I’m going to feel bad about it. West Virginia is hit or miss, as far as people coming out, but actually has a ton of great bands in and around the state. Of course, we’ve got stoner metal legends Karma To Burn. We are lucky to call those guys friends.

Awesome.

We’re booking a show this weekend with our buddies in Ratship, from the Huntington area – super cool! 4 Ohm Mono is great! Byzantine, they’re blowing up recently and they’re great! They’ve been going at it forever. The band Signals from the Huntington/Charleston area, some friends of ours – great talent. Jesse Smith & The Holy Ghost, he played drums in Zao and now he’s fronting his own band. There’s a local band here, Dino Drive, that we like to get together with, just really intense live performances. So many good bands, it’s hard to pick and then you wonder why we don’t have a bigger scene when there’s so much good music happening, but it’s just one of those things.

What are some doom, stoner, sludge bands that have influenced Horseburner?

For me, one of my biggest influences musically is Baroness, just like from their first couple EPs. When I first heard 'em, all the way up until now, they keep evolving and it’s always interesting. They’re not willing to just do the same thing over and over again. They want to change; they want to keep pushing themselves.

You gotta love that, as a musician yourself. It stinks some fans can be ignorant about a band evolving and progressing musically.

Yeah, but I’ve been on the other side, as well. Yellow and Green I wasn’t into it for the longest time. You know, I respected that that were doing it, but it wasn’t until I listened to it again a couple months ago that something clicked and I was like, “Okay, I get what they’re going for” – five years later! That band’s been really important to me in my developments. When I first got into heavy stuff, bands like THOU were really big, too.

Yes!

Swampy, doomy-like, very cool stuff like that. A lot of classic rock, bands like Tom Petty and Thin Lizzy are probably some of our favorites. I think we get our guitar influence from bands like Thin Lizzy, that kind of style.

I actually saw Tom Petty in North Charleston, right out of high school. Damn good show.

Absolutely! I got to see him a couple years ago. I went and saw him on his very last tour and I’m glad I did, because he ended up passing away. The tickets were really expensive and I had already seen him once, but I’m glad I went anyway. The last tour.

What’s in the works for Horseburner besides Firebreather Festival?

Well, right now I have been spending my entire day shotgunning messages trying to finalize a tour we’re doing here in a couple months. We have a couple of empty dates we’re trying to fill. We’re going to have a pretty busy spring. We’re playing Maryland Doom Fest in the summer.

Oh, man, lucky!

It’s going to be awesome. We’re playing Friday, which the lineup is killer. I think we’re going to stay through the weekend, because it’s such an amazing time.

Who’s playing? I haven’t seen the lineup yet.

Oh, man, the whole lineup is crazy. So Friday – man, now I’m trying to remember all the bands playing which days. Disenchanter from Oregon is going to be there. Those dudes, they’re just great! We’ve been talking to those guys recently and I’m excited to see them in person. Who else? There’s just so much going on, it’s hard to remember. The Obsessed are headlining, Zed is going to be there. Erik Sugg of Demon Eye also plays in Lightning Born – it’s got Mike Dean from Corrosion Of Conformity in that band, as well.

Damn!

Geezer’s playing, Unorthodox, Bail Jack. Friday is going to be pretty intense! The rest of the sets are insane, you got Windhand, Earthride, and our buddies in Cavern. Cavern’s one of the best bands going today. Doomstress from Texas, The Midnight Ghost Train, Weedeater, Caustic Casanova, Backwoods Payback, Book Of Wyrms, just tons of great bands!

Cavern, they’re not from the UK are they?

No they are from Maryland.

So how did you get on Maryland Doom Fest, anyway?

We’ve been friends with Cavern for a long time and they played last year and we have a lot of friends in that area. We ended up staying with this guy named Mark Cruikshank and he’s actually one of the main people in charge of the fest. He’s just a really good dude, really hospitable, put us up for two days. He sent us an email, asked if we wanted to play. We said, “Of course!” We’re the first band, kicking off the whole weekend, and are gonna try to set the tone for the weekend.

That’s a very amazing position to be in. Big gig and great honor for you guys!

Yeah it’s going to be really cool. I’m super excited about it!

I’ve always wanted to go to Maryland Deathfest. Then it was awesome, they came out with Maryland Doom Fest.

The people up in that scene are amazing! We’ve been doing this for a while and we’ve met a lot of people. The people in that area, especially, are very close knit, just great people. I’m sure you’ve heard that we were all shocked and horrified by what happened to Jim Forrester from Foghound.

I believe they caught one guy involved in the murder. It’s so heartbreaking that a good guy is taken away from us because of some shitheads!

It really is, because musically, Foghound is such a great band. Serpents Of Secrecy, his other band, is so good and then to just have like a nice, genuine, loving human being ripped away like that on top of all of the health problems he had over the past year.

It’s still shocking, it still tears you up. He was a good man who was loved by many people.

Yeah, I feel lucky to call some of those people friends, but my heart breaks for them all – right now, especially. I think that Foghound was supposed to play on Saturday of Maryland Doom Fest. I have a feeling it’s just going to be this outpouring of love. I’m so happy we got to be part of that!

So what else has been happening in your world?

I just got a delivery from UPS. New cymbals in the mail, so I’m pretty stoked about that!

It’s always good getting gear!

It’s a fun mail day to have.

What’s a damn good book you’ve read, Adam?

I just finished Norm Macdonald’s memoir.

Okay, cool. I like Norm Macdonald.

It’s part autobiography, but the more you read, it just goes off the rails and starts mixing in different stuff. It’s a short read, really entertaining, and really funny!

While we’re on a bit of a lighter note, what makes you laugh uncontrollably?

Something that makes me laugh uncontrollably?

Something you think about and laugh out loud, maybe pee your pants laughing so hard.

This is super dumb, but I will always find it funny when someone purposely mispronounces a word. Super lame, but that’s one thing that’s guaranteed to get me laughing. It never fails. I’m a teacher by profession and I hang out with twelve-year olds all day, so my sense of humor is a little deranged. (laughs)

I bet. I have two sons, 17 and 14. A lot of what they think is funny is what I think is funny, as well.

(laughs) It’s lovely how that happens.

I might not be the most well-versed man, but I love to read, learn, and cram knowledge into my head. That said, it’s funny how I can go from highbrow stuff to lowbrow – 0 to 60 in three seconds flat!

(laughs) For me it’s not necessarily what is said, it’s how it’s said. It’s in the delivery. Sometimes, dude, it’ll be a genuine question, but the way those kids say something will make me stop in the middle of a class and just burst out laughing.

You have to appreciate the honesty, the innocence. There is no filter with kids, sometimes.

No! You’re right. Hey, Looks like a couple of my guys showed up. Seth walked in, he’s our bass player, and Zach’s here, one of my best friends for almost 20 years now. Hopefully, we’ve got a lot going on this year, busy spring and summer. August will make 10 years since we started the band.

10 years! Congratulations!

Thanks. We’ve put up with a lot of people switching in and out. We kind of got a running joke: “Who’s going to be our bass player in about a month?” (laughs) We’ve got Seth now. Seth seems like he’s actually in for the long haul. Seth also hasn’t done a longer tour with us yet, so that’ll be the marker for if he still wants to hang out with us.

Putting his feet to the fire! I’ve heard some horror stories from the road.

Yeah, a tour is the most fun you can have, but it’s the most daunting and frustrating experience in the world. You can’t replace those experiences with anything else, so it’s all worth it in the end.

Looks like your rocking vinyl for your 'Dead Seed, Barren Soil’ now?

A couple of years ago, we self-released our debut LP, which is funny because we took eight years to make our first full-length. So we released that ourselves and then it got picked up by an upstart label out of New York/New Jersey called Hellmistress Records. They’ve been really good to us. Melanie used to work for MeteorCity Records, used to run it, and now she’s doing her own thing. So we got our reissued LP out on with a gatefold cover, color variance, the works. People can check that out, order a record. And we are working on a follow up right now.

Very cool! We can’t wait for that and we’ll keep our readers updated as new developments unfold. Adam from Horseburner, thanks for your time.

For sure, man!