Years after Chris Cornell’s voice was silenced, the idea that there is still unheard music bearing his name feels both like a gift and a weight. Among the most talked-about chapters of Cornell’s legacy are the unreleased recordings from Audioslave, the band that fused Cornell’s volcanic vocals with the militant groove of Rage Against the Machine. The songs exist. They are finished enough to haunt conversations. And for now, they remain locked in time.
“There’s probably like an album’s worth of great Audioslave songs that were not released,” Tom Morello says. “From each of the three Audioslave records, we had songs left over — some of which are really great.”
Audioslave’s catalog was never about excess. Across three albums between 2002 and 2006, the band moved with urgency, blending Cornell’s melodic anguish with riffs that felt industrial, muscular, and political without ever being overt. But as Morello explains, the process of choosing what made the final cut was often more human than logical.
“When bands are deciding what songs go on their records and what don’t, it’s not always sensible,” he says. “It’s not like, ‘Here are the ten best jams.’ Sometimes it’s just someone’s not feeling that one.”
Since Cornell’s tragic passing in 2017, questions about the unreleased Audioslave material surface regularly — and with understandable hope. Morello is careful not to offer false promises. “It’s not for lack of anything other than just we don’t have it together,” he admits. “There’s no plan to not put it out. I would love for it to get in the world, and hopefully it will one day.”
That hope carries added resonance in 2025, a year that formally cemented Cornell’s place in rock history. He was officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025 with Soundgarden, honoring the band that first unleashed his singular voice on the world. At the same time, Soundgarden’s surviving members continue working toward releasing the final recordings made with Cornell — a parallel effort that underscores how much of his story remains unfinished.
The unreleased Audioslave songs sit in that same emotional space: not relics, not commodities, but living artifacts. They represent a band that briefly burned at full intensity — and a singer whose voice still feels present tense.
For now, the music waits. And in that waiting, Cornell’s legacy continues to echo — unresolved, powerful, and impossible to forget.
Photo credit: Randy Gilbert
