I once again refer to the longer songs on the album, especially "Heaven Beside You", whose bittersweet chorus is always followed up by this heavy doom metal riff. This is partly due to the harmonies the Cantrell and Staley always make even in a really heavy or somber song. "Sludge Factory" I believe uses this sound best and is probably my favorite on the album.Ĭantrell's comment in an interview of "Our music's kind of about taking something ugly and making it beautiful", really paints a good picture of this album's sound. You get this mesh of sludgy riffing dripping with misery and twangy acoustic blues guitar that actually enhances the overall mood.
Great examples of this are on the longer songs on the album, such as "Sludge Factory", "Heaven Beside You", and "Frogs".
The band finally brings their two sounds together on this album, and it works beautifully. However, it is blended with some bittersweet melodies, harmonies, and a creative use of the band's acoustic side shown on their EP's. The underlying doom metal influence that's always been with the band perhaps shows up the most on this album. The band has never been known for uplifting music, but this album might very well be their most outright depressing and dreary album. While Jerry Cantrell has expressed his joy with the finished product, it sounds like Staley's heroin addiction made it a pain to get the record done. It is probably overshadowed by Dirt, which is often seen as the band's magnum opus and a crown jewel of the grunge genre, as well as the band's 2009 comeback album Black Gives Way to Blue, which is often seen as their best album after Dirt if not their best (Which I personally don't understand, I find that album pretty boring and bland, but that's a review for another day).Īlice in Chains is an album where you can just hear all the band tensions and what was going on at the time. There's nothing like some good glam grunge.Īlice in Chains' self titled album, their last album to feature frontman Layne Staley, is one that is often forgotten or pushed aside in their discography. It keeps switching between the brooding sludge of songs like It Ain't Like That with the hooks of Put You Down. Put You Down and funky banger I Know Somethin' (Bout You) are probably my favorites, but Sunshine is the best showing of the contrast. We Die Young is one of the best openers to any metal album, and just perfectly sets the stage for the perfect blend of depressive lyrics with pumped up heavy metal hooks. A song like Put You Down sounds right at home with the likes of Dr. This is dark, Layne's drug addicted lyrics are all over this thing, but the music's got a party vibe backed by massive grooves and swaggering sleaze. I love AiC's following two albums too, but it's almost all doom and gloom. I love the unique sound that some bands had during the time hair bands were leaving the metal mainstream and grunge was entering it, there's this balancing act between dark heavy shit and dumb party hooks that isn't heard anywhere else. Best thing Alice in Chains ever did, partly because of the band transitioning from hair metal to grunge.
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