Soundgarden left everyone wanting more when they teased the muscular riff that opens “Live to Rise,” the first all-new song from the band in 15 years. Now the full song is online, courtesy of hometown rock station KISW/Seattle. After said riff, the song settles into a mid-tempo verse that calls to mind Audioslave, but the instrumentation is unmistakably Soundgarden. Cornell’s voice sounds great, and the chorus is pretty anthemic, as the first single from a superhero movie should be. The song doesn’t really get going until Kim Thayil’s guitar freakout that starts with a solo and continues until the end of the song. “Live to Rise” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Superunknown or Down on the Upside, and while it’s maybe a little less heavy than we would’ve liked, it still leaves us wanting to hear more new music from the band. While “Black Rain” came out on 2010’s Telephantasm compilation, that song was left over from the Badmotorfinger sessions.
The soundtrack, called Avengers Assemble, hits stores on May 1, three days before the Avengers movie hits theaters, but you can listen to “Live to Rise” here right now.
