Monster Monday: Chris Cornell- Scream

Chris Cornell- Scream

It opens with fan fair. A synth voice begins the tale as if told around some kind of funky futuristic glow pit. A tale of a creature born of metal and strings with a beat-box heart.

It’s clear from the first track that the old sound is no more a [Part of Me.] This monster is not the same old B-monster we are familiar with from the days of Soundgarden through Audioslave that we know how to handle. Didn’t we love that monster?

The beat shifts a tad and you realize that we are alone. Where did it go? It was there just a minute ago, before we blinked, red eyes pulsing to the music and hips swaying as if charmed like a snake by a techno flute from hell. [I wish we could rewind. Time.] You didn’t like the look of its machete hand. I can’t say I was thrilled about either.

I thought I heard a whisper about [Sweet Revenge.] The tiniest breathe on the back of my neck. Wait. Wasn’t this thing a machine?

“Run.” I shout.

You can’t move. Paralyzed with fear. Don’t you know you’ve got to [Get up?]

[You need a backbone to roll with the world.] You shoot out of the room into a dark hallway and keep pumping your legs as fast as you can. Your shoes hit the floor in double time behind me.

We both crash through a door and get tangled in a mess of wires and panels. Where are we?

[Ground Zero.] This is where it all must have gone wrong. It looks like some kind of techno birthing chamber. The wires are hanging from the ceiling as if the sky was gutted. Sparks fly intermittently. Blood spatters cover the glass partitions. Mutilated bodies lay sprawled on the floor like discarded toys. This is not good.

You’re world suddenly shifts as [Never Far Away] pours out from the room speakers, somehow still working. This is a groove that you can get behind. No more fear. Nothing but sweet romance. [Whenever I come. Wherever I go. No, you’re never far away, far away.]

My mouth drops open as you start dancing. I thought you only danced like that because it gets a laugh but now I can tell you’re in the zone. You really shouldn’t leave the house.

I guess it’s just me now. I grab an ax from the wall next to the fire extinguisher and search the darkness for the monster. It’ll never [Take me Alive.]

I wish I was [Long Gone.] Hey, this tune sounds familiar. Maybe this thing is what we’re used to dealing with after all. That voice of honey and rock salt can’t be mistaken. There’s only one way to be sure.

A spinning blade erupts from the wall next to me. I [Scream] like a little girl. At least I’m not dancing like a spastic belly dancer.

A barrage of sound pelts me that includes [Enemy], [Other Side of Town] and [Climbing up the Walls.] I swing the ax but can’t get a bead on the inhuman monster. It’s on me too fast. I feel a cut in my arm and another in my leg. It burns.

Just as those red eyes fill my vision, I fall from a push. You’ve come out of your stupor and grabbed a loose bunch of wires from the ceiling with a particularly nasty looking spark issuing from them. I watch as you shove them into the slit that thing has for a mouth and its eyes bug out. Arms, legs, and blades fly everywhere.

The monster falls.

All that remains of life in the monster escapes as the smoke from over-heated circuits drift up like slowly scattering snakes. You pulled through for me again.

“What a ride though, eh?” You say as we make our way through various dark rooms to the bright outside.

No doubt. But…

[Watch Out.]