"It re-establishes that we still rock, we're still heavy, and we're still a little weird," guitarist Kim Thayil says of the grunge gods' first new album since the Nineties. Standout tracks like "Blood on the Valley Floor" showcase the classic combo of Thayil's asymmetrical riffage and frontman Chris Cornell's antihero howl, while "A Thousand Days Before" gets experimental. "That one has a little Indian thing and some chicken-pickin'," Thayil says. "We call it 'country & eastern.' "