Higher Truth by Chris Cornell

Higher Truth, Chris Cornell's fourth solo album, came out on September 18, 2015, and it turned out to be the last he released in his lifetime. He picked Brendan O'Brien to produce because he wanted something more intimate, and the pair built the drums mostly from loops, some Cornell programmed himself, some O'Brien played on a small kit, layering percussion on top.

Away from Soundgarden and Audioslave, Cornell's solo work always put that voice first, and here it's the nearly four-octave instrument at close range, able to belt with frightening force but mostly content to hold back over a mellow, low-key backdrop. "Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart" is the song that carried it onto the countdowns. Critics were largely kind: it scored 68 on Metacritic, and AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised its relaxed, enveloping calm.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.