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Temple of the Dog's debut and only album possesses as big of names as it does talent.

The lead singer for the band is Chris Cornell, lead singer of Soundgarden, and is accompanied by Stone Gossard on rhythm and slide guitar, Mike McCready on Lead Guitar, and Matt Cameron on the drums and percussion, all of band Pearl Jam, which was to form later that year to produce the album Ten, another colossal movement in the Blues Rock/Grunge movement.

It is rare that you will find a singer who's voice is near as distinctive as Chris Cornell's, but unlike many other singers famous for a distinctive voice, Chris Cornell accompanies a unique sound, with great technical prowess, both in range and the ability to hold a note. Though his diction is not the clearest in the world, he is able to express such phrases as "Too late to cry she turned away, I started pushing, I saw no future in this lack. I started pushing forward back," with such a soulful attitude that it is unnecessary to understand the individual ideas because the emotion is all that is necessary, especially when you are exploring the blues.

The sound and harmony of the words are not the only thing to be praised, though. Lyrically, the album is not the greatest in the world, but when it delivers a punch, you do not want to be on the receiving end of it. In the song "Wooden Jesus," Cornell takes sharp digs at evangelism by speaking of cutting Jesus in on twenty percent of his future sin, expensive coathanger haloes, and television shepards preaching to living room sheep. Given the deeply religious connotations of the album as a whole, I give the band a great deal of respect for being able to look skeptically at those who purport to be representative of their religion.

In this album, Gossard demonstates his ability to generate beautiful musical harmony in composition of several blues ballads, combining electric slide guitars, which an acoustic background, in the song "Four Walled World." It is almost as if there were an entirely separate band playing concurrently whenever Gossard and Cornell work together on one of their songs.

This dynamic works its magic the greatest in the song "Reach Down," an eleven minute song comprised of a fairly basic blues rhythm, mildly inspirational lyrics, and three of the most electric solos ever witnessed upon a rock album. The song begins with about a full minute of a five note distortion progression that you will get quite used to and maybe even annoyed by, come the end of the song, but after thirty seconds of Cornell singing, you think that the sound of the lyrics will be able to carry the rest of the song. It isn't until 1:24 that you get to hear the hint of how creative the guitar work will be on this song. Unfortunately, you only getabout 6 seconds of this, and wonder where it goes for another minute, until you get the first of three spectacular solos, that will fill the songs 3:00 basic blues progression into an eleven minute masterpiece. 3:30 seconds gives you a mind-bending concept of, "Love, yes, love was my drug, but that's not what I'm dying of, so don't think of me crying louder than some billion dollar baby." The lyrics continue to convey their vaguely inspirational path until about 5:00, when you get to hear Mike McCready experiment around and feel out Bassist Jeff Ament to see what they can get away with in the song, when at about 6:00 in, Stone Gossard interrupts the exploration by overlaying a more traditional blue solo on top creating a totally new dynamic to distortion blues that had not been previously experimented, nor has it been sufficiently mastered since. You are allowed two full minutes of hearing two spectacular blues guitarists dance with each other and use the bass and drums as the launching point of a beauteous electric melody. At eight minutes and forty five seconds, Chris Cornell, accompanied by future lead singer Eddie Vedder, enters back into the song and utilizes four tracks of vocal harmony to create a haunting A Capella solo fitting the song perfectly. After about 45 seconds of that you get to return to the chorus, providing a solid classic ending to a song that is truly unforgettable, the height of any of these artist's creative mastery.

The album ends on the song "All Night Thing," which through it's slow progression of jazz piano and ragtime drumming, gives the same comfort to the listener as lying in the arms of the one who you have just done an all night thing with.