Chris Cornell, in my estimation, has the greatest rock voice of the past twenty years. He’s my version of Robert Plant. I pretty much co-sign anything that dude sings-unless it’s with Timbaland. Their 2009 collaboration “Scream” was one of those albums that you wished never existed (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chris and Timbo felt the same about the record).

You knew that the only thing that would even come close to being able to save face for Chris would be a Soundgarden reunion, and lo and behold: the rock behemoths gathered their stuff and hit Lollapalooza up a couple of weeks back. Now, in advance of a new (and totally unnecessary) greatest hits collection on 9/28, Cornell and company have graced us with “Black Rain”, a new…hey, wait a second.

Turns out, “Black Rain”‘s not a new track at all. It was left over from the sessions from Soundgarden’s breakthrough album, “Badmotorfinger”. Ah well. Any chance to hear Cornell’s voice over crunchy guitars is a good thing, and the song’s good enough to have made any of their albums, quite frankly. I wonder why it ended up on the cutting room floor.

If Van Halen can go back into the studio to make a new album, I don’t see why these guys can’t.