When Jerry Cantrell, best known as the guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter for Alice in Chains, put out his second solo album, Degradation Trip, in 2002, it had only been four years since the prior Boggy Depot, but what a four years. As the country went from the-late-1990s-ideal-that-the-machines-used-to-make-the-Matrix to post-9/11 paranoia and began what would become an entire generation’s span of war, Cantrell was four years deeper into the loss of Alice in Chains‘ frontman, Layne Staley — who is mourned throughout the record — even though the whopping 25 songs in the two-plus hours of the special edition Degradation Trip Vol. 1 & 2 were written before he actually died; this makes sense if you’ve ever lost somebody to heroin addiction; they’re gone first, then they’re dead. I seem to recall there was a divorce in there too, but don’t quote me on that and all I can find in searching for info on it is about his parents splitting when he was a kid.

In any case, the story goes that Cantrell locked himself in the house for four months and wrote the demos for what would become these songs on his guitar. I’ve only interviewed him once, in 2005, when Alice in Chains — Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez, drummer Sean Kinney and vocalist William DuVall, who had previously toured with Cantrell‘s solo band and played in Comes With the Fall — got back together for a VH-1 tribute to Seattle legends Heart, but in that interview, I asked if he’d ever release those demos. It was a long time ago, but I seem to recall he might’ve laughed as he said no.

Even in their finished forms, the tracks of Degradation Trip — issued by Roadrunner, first as a single disc, then a few months later in the 2CD Degradation Trip Vol. 1 & 2 — have their raw moments. “Solitude,” “What it Takes,” “Castaway,” the dramatic solo instrumental “Hurts Don’t It?,” and so on. For a record with a professional-style production, a largely untouchable rhythm section in bassist Robert Trujillo (who’d join Metallica the next year) and drummer Mike Bordin (Faith No More), who had been playing together in Ozzy Osbourne‘s touring band, and such hooky, single-ready fare as “Angel Eyes,” “Anger Rising,” “She Was My Girl,” “Give it a Name” “Hellbound,” and others, there’s also room in its massive runtime for a song like “Feel the Void,” which rolls out in a more thoroughly doomed style, melodic but working on a linear structure and with a patience that even the acoustic “Gone” at the end of the first disc and “31/32” at the end of the second — both gorgeous — can’t match. Songs throughout reach brazenly over seven minutes or eight in the case of the nodding “Pig Charmer” but are balanced against the more traditional, straightforward songs — “Pig Charmer” for example, has “She Was My Girl” before it and “Anger Rising After.” Its Vol. 1 get-weird counterpart, “Feel the Void,” follows the catchy “Pro False Idol” and leads into the breakout chorus in “Locked On,” so yes, there is symmetry between the two parts of the album, which was reissued as a 4LP in 2019.

That actually might be a good way to experience Degradation Trip, with all the breaks and side flips inherent in a vinyl listen. Taken front to back, Degradation Trip Vol. 1 & 2 is a powerful, consuming and quite possibly overwhelming way to spend the better part of an afternoon. Cantrell weaves in and out of different styles but wraps all of them in his own weighted approach, be it the hard-riffed “Bargain Basement Howard Hughes” or “Mother’s Spinning in Her Grave (Glass Dick Jones)” or “Owned” or the mellower-but-miserable “S.O.S.” or the purely Alice in Chains-style harmonic engagement of “Spiderbite,” “Siddhartha,” the lead cut “Psychotic Break” and “Dying Inside.” Even the most out-there stretches of Vol. 2 are Cantrell‘s own, expanding on ideas brought later to Alice in Chains and digging in in a way that feels especially bold for someone who had spent the last decade-plus in a professional, commercially viable and successful band. I suppose on the scale of underground heavy, it’s all still relatively accessible — dude was never going to do screamy sludgecore or something like that — but for the scale of release, there are plenty of moments that feel brave.

And as he had already long since proven, Cantrell is one of the best rock songwriters of his generation. That comes through from “Psychotic Break” onward, and apart from the unifying factor of melody in the material whatever might be going on structurally in a given track, Cantrell finds ways to hone memorability, be it the soaring leads of “Hurts Don’t It?” or the lyrical wistfulness of “31/32.” A big part of what makes Degradation Trip Vol. 1 & 2 so powerful is the emotionality, and taken in combination with the fact that there’s just so much of it in the two-volume edition, that too-much-on-the-brain feeling comes through all the more in ways perhaps even Cantrell himself wouldn’t have intended. Ups, downs, through and behind, this album goes places that one of the most storied careers in rock music — period — had never gone before and hasn’t gone to since.

I’ll rarely go to bat for double-CD releases. A 2LP?  Well, that can be anywhere from 50 minutes to almost 90, so there’s a range there — a lot of 2LPs still fit on a single CD — but 2CDs more often than not are excessive and could either be a full-length and an EP or, as in many cases, just two full-lengths released in succession, or a bunch of tracks get held back for other uses in service to a great single album. To wit, I firmly believe The White Album — and yes, I know that’s not the official name but you fucking know what I’m talking about — should be a single LP. Degradation Trip works better as two full albums, but had they come out separately, so much of the strength of the release, the gone-so-deep-you’d-be-lost-if-the-songs-weren’t-so-good atmosphere projected across the span is what would be sacrificed, and even as firm as I am in my opinion on double-albums, I have to acknowledge the periodic exception to every rule, even my own.

This is a record that I love in a personal way. I hadn’t listened to it in years and still was singing along by the time the verses started. It’s that kind of thing.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Writing from the train at the Turtle Back Zoo, staple of any Northern New Jersey childhood, certainly my own. Thankfully it’s been redone since the ’80s when I’d have come here with my mother and no doubt there were all sorts of poisonous lizards running around loose roaming lions, no science, etc. We’re here with the Pecan. He earned it.

Monday was his last diaper. We had told him it was coming and it was two of the hardest days I’ve yet had as a parent, but where nothing else worked, he now pees and poops in the toilet. It’s only been two and a half years.

But yeah, the train ride is ending and then it’s off to face painting and then maybe I think eventually to see an animal or two, pony ride, sprinkler, carousel, etc. Sun is burning.

He also got Lego monster trucks, ice cream and I let him steer the car while I worked the pedals. Right now he’s trying to pee with The Patient Mrs. in the zoo ladies room, which will be a first in-public pee. I feel like it’s a milestone for me more than him.

Next week, tons of shit. I have notes, couldn’t even tell you where they start. Thanks for reading, great and safe weekend. Hydrate. It’s hot out here.

FRM.

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Tags: Alice in Chains, California, Degradation Trip Vol. 1 & 2, Jerry Cantrell, Jerry Cantrell Degradation Trip 1 & 2, Los Angeles, Roadrunner Records

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2022 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.