Soundgarden - Louder Than Love

Louder Than Love is Soundgarden's 1989 major-label debut, a slab of sludgy, drop-tuned heaviness pressed here on 180-gram vinyl.

Released on A&M, it took the Seattle band beyond the underground and became the first grunge record to reach the Billboard 200. It was also the last album with original bassist Hiro Yamamoto, who left before the tour, and it captures the band at a crossroads between punk-fed noise and the towering metal that would follow on Badmotorfinger.

Terry Date produced with the band, and the sound is thick and dry, with Kim Thayil's guitar grinding against Matt Cameron's knotty, off-kilter drumming. Chris Cornell's voice is already a force of nature, howling across Hands All Over, an epic warning about the damage humanity does to the planet. Loud Love rises out of a swell of noise before crashing into a monstrous groove, and Get on the Snake slithers along in an unusual 9/4 time signature that keeps you slightly off balance. Many of the songs sit in drop D, so the low end hits like a landslide.

Its influence spread far beyond Seattle, with Kirk Hammett crediting it as inspiration for the riff of Enter Sandman. This heavyweight pressing does justice to every bruising low note.