It’s been probably well over a decade since the last time I actually listened to Alice in Chains‘ Unplugged album, and if there’s a reason I stress ‘actually’ there, it’s because most of the time I don’t have to turn it on to hear it. It’s just imprinted on my brain. Still, details like the oddly popping snare on “No Excuses,” the oddball opener “Nutshell,” the slightly-off-and-where’s-Ann–Wilson harmonies of “Brother,” all feel like coming home to a certain degree. Recorded in Brooklyn in May 1996, it was aired on MTV and released on CD that October, and I remember watching it on my mother’s tv upstairs in her room because it was the biggest screen in the house other than the one in the family room downstairs, which my father used exclusively for watching old nuns talking about the apocalypse and war documentaries. My parents split up about a month later, maybe? Funny to think of these things in context like that. I’m honestly not sure I have the year right.

So I guess I’ll beg your indulgence on the nostalgia trip as much as I can indulge it myself. ‘Tis the season, and so on. But it’s been probably since Unplugged was reissued in 2007 that I listened to it straight through. They hadn’t played a gig in like two years, which I suppose makes the set I saw them do at Lollapalooza ’93 — I was 11 at the time — almost relevant in their touring schedule, and with their self-titled third album (discussed here) having come out in ’95, Unplugged has ended up an encapsulation of what the Seattle-based grunge forerunners did during their first incarnation, prior to fizzling out, losing frontman Layne Staley in 2002 to a heroin addiction that in ’96 was already visibly and audibly ripping him to shreds and eventually regrouping in the mid-aughts with William DuVall on guitar/vocals alongside founding guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney.

That third full-length features well on Unplugged with “Sludge Factory,” “Heaven Beside You,” “Frogs” (which didn’t air on the original broadcast) and “Over Now,” and their 1992 commercial breakout, Dirt (discussed here) does likewise, with “Down in a Hole” (with some switched up lyrics in the second chorus), “Angry Chair” (which also apparently didn’t air though damned if I don’t remember it doing so), “Rooster” and “Would?” included alongside EP cuts like “Brother” and “Got Me Wrong” from 1992’s Sap (discussed here) and “Nutshell” and “No Excuses” from 1994’s Jar of Flies, which one imagines were easy enough to translate to their Unplugged arrangements, being largely acoustic-based to start with.

Some songs work better than others. The brooding harmonies between Staley and Cantrell come through on “Angry Chair,” but of course part of what makes that track such a highlight of Dirt is its harder impact, and that’s willfully given up here. Points for trying. “Down in a Hole” is better here than on Dirt. And it’s strange to think of a release that was mixed by Toby Wright, broadcast on MTV and released by Columbia Records as being “raw,” but the largely dry treatment on the vocals and instruments that was such a part of the series’ aesthetic does still lend an organic feel. “Sludge Factory,” after its false start, “Heaven Beside You,” the suitably croaking “Frogs” and “No Excuses” fare exceedingly well, and I might say the same of “Rooster,” “Heaven Beside You” and “Would?,” the latter a track that I’d burnt out on years ago as a radio single but in my recent kick have gone back to repeatedly, the lyric “Am I wrong?” often followed by a “yes” in my brain as a kind of running gag.

I’ll spare you the “rock ain’t what it was” spiel, since that entire perspective is even more tired than I find myself having woken up shortly after four this morning with these songs running through my head. The harsh reality is rock isn’t what it was; it’s better. Yes, their was pivotal groundwork being laid at the time by bands like this, but especially thinking of the best of 2021 list that went up this week, I don’t think I’d trade what’s being made now for what was being made then, as much as you couldn’t have the other without the one. Stuff like Alice in Chains just happened to hit me at the right moment in my own life. I know people who feel the same about Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Beatles. The art you engage with in formative years should be important to you, but if you neglect the present in service to it, it’s your loss.

My view, anyhow. Idolization of the past — and your own inherently subjective experience of it — is a trap to be avoided. Your best days are ahead of you; a thing to be worked toward, however old you are.

Alice in Chains gave glimpses of what might’ve been after their self-titled, here and elsewhere. “Killer is Me” rounds out as an encore here with Scott Olson on bass while Inez moves to guitar. That track, as well as songs like “Get Born Again” and “Died” that were recorded in 1998 for the Music Bank box set, comprise the bulk of the band’s final work with Staley, which is sadder in light of their prior accomplishments.

With DuVall as a co-frontman with Cantrell, the band has progressed across three full-lengths. The most recent of them, 2018’s Rainier Fog (discussed here), continues to get semi-regular spins. More than this record, come to think of it. I skipped 2013’s The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here after not digging the return LP, 2009’s Black Gives Way to Blue, but finally put in the time to listen — substantial time, at that — and don’t regret it. I’ll probably cap a week with it sooner or later.

But the bottom line here is some albums and some bands stay with you, year in and year out, even if you don’t actually listen to them all the time. That’s me and Unplugged. I’m way more inclined to put on Sap or the self-titled or Jar of Flies on a given day, or even Dirt or 1991’s Facelift if that’s where my head is at, but neither do I regret having this one on this morning. As always, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

—

My original plan for this week had been to post the two in-studio pieces I wrote last weekend on Monday and Tuesday. I probably should’ve run that plan by the label involved, admittedly. I did not, and their preference was to hold off until closer to the album hype, which will start in like two months. Meanwhile, every minute I could give to anything Monday and Tuesday was going to the year-end stuff, so there was neither time nor headspace to write about anything else. I do my best, but I’m only one person, despite the still-weekly “hey dudes” emails and messages I receive.

Anyhow, Happy Xmas if that’s your thing. I did a news dump yesterday in an effort to get caught up — ongoing — but will have a proper review up Monday, either Weedpecker or Spaceslug, though I seem to recall Spaceslug are doing a video premiere elsewhere and I don’t want to conflict with that. So maybe Weedpecker first. I plan to get to both, in any case.

And I’ve planned the Quarterly Review to continue the week after though I may delay it.

I know these things are low stakes. I know they matter most to me, but they do matter to me, so I like to work it out ahead of time. To know what I’m doing.

In any case, I’ll be back on Monday to the best of my ability. The Pecan is off from school next week and he loses his shit when he sees me on the laptop, so I’m basically at the mercy of The Patient Mrs.’ indulgence and whatever I can get done in the mornings. I’m sure I’ve survived worse with reasonable productivity intact.

Then it’ll be New Year’s, which I suppose is also a thing.

I’m gonna punch out and close my eyes on the couch. Been writing this on my phone — see “loses his shit” above — and it’s time to stop. If you’re celebrating today or tomorrow, or if you’re not, all my best to you and yours.

Thanks for reading, have a great and safe weekend, hydrate and watch your head. Back on Monday.

FRM.

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From the first “I” of “Them Bones” to the last “you” of “Would?,” Dirt is a once-in-a-generation album, and for the band who made it, a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. Released in 1992 through Columbia Records — stop and imagine that for a second — as part of great major label Seattle-underground mining project that became known as the grunge movement, Dirt was the second Alice in Chains full-length behind 1991’s Facelift (currently receiving a deluxe box set issue for its 30th anniversary, one expects no less for this next year), and like few releases of its era, continues to resonate a sense of the genuine darkness underlying its purposes. I can no more feign impartiality about this record than I could a member of my family; I’ve lived with it for 29 years. Dirt was the third CD I ever owned behind The Beatles‘ Past Masters Vol. 1 (which I found in a drawer) and Metallica‘s Master of Puppets, and even at 10 years old, I understood it was something special. I remember seeing the “Them Bones” video on Headbanger’s Ball. Hearing the songs on the radio. I saw Alice in Chains at Lollapalooza ’93 in Waterloo, NJ. This album was a defining feature of my pubescence.

The sound of Dirt was churning, heavy, deceptive in its rhythmic intricacy — Sean Kinney‘s drumming is among the most underrated in commercial heavy/hard rock; he should be discussed in the same breath as Danny Carey — and of course melodic, defined by the crucial vocal arrangements between guitarist Jerry Cantrell and frontman Layne Staley. With Mike Starr‘s bass beneath Cantrell‘s guitar — mixed low in early ’90s fashion but still subject to highlight moments like the beginning of “Rain When I Die” or the penultimate “Angry Chair” — and the by-now-classic-style heroics of the solos and riffs throughout, Dirt manages to be both a performance album highlighting the best its players could bring to the table at the time and a songwriting album, packed with the kind of tracks that most groups would be lucky to feature one of in a career, let alone on an album. The advent of Nirvana on rock radio may have spearheaded grunge, but it was the brooding, darker turns of Alice in Chains that gave the sound its credibility, as well as set in motion an influence spanning generations of low-in-the-mouth singers almost none of whom could come close to Staley‘s style or emotive reach.

Dirt is of its era in being a 57-minute-long CD. “Would?” appeared on the Singles soundtrack, and I don’t even know how many videos were ultimately made for its songs. “Would?” was one, and “Them Bones,” and “Rooster” and “Angry Chair.” “Rooster” would become something of a defining success for Alice in Chains — they still make t-shirts; I almost bought one this week — which is somewhat ironic since it was one of the pieces that most departed from the album’s unstated theme of heroin addiction, specifically that which would ultimately claim Staley‘s life. A more purely Cantrell composition, and about his own father, its militaristic story was a lot less fraught to tell in a time when the US hadn’t just spent 20 years at war for nothing.

“Rooster” remains a good song, but it’s by no means the best on Dirt, and I’m sure we could — frankly, I’d love to — have a great time debating what is. The propulsive kick of “Them Bones” or “Dam That River” at the outset? The depressive “Rain When I Die” and pushing-toward-unplugged “Down in a Hole?” The seeming chaos of “Sickman” and the too-high-but-somehow-held-together “Junkhead”? The lines there — “Are you happy? I am, man/Content and fully aware/Money, status, nothing to me/’Cause your life’s empty and bare,” separating addicts not as outcasts but as “an elite race of our own,” the “our” there pivotal not only for what it said about the speaker in the song but for its implication toward the listener — still brutal. The brazenly suicidal “Dirt?” The rawer shove of “Godsmack?” And in the closing trilogy of “Hate to Feel,” “Angry Chair” and “Would?,” is there a flawless moment? How many mixtapes can you shove a single track onto? I damn near found out with “Hate to Feel.”

The nostalgia factor is, period. I can’t and won’t try to get away from it. I wonder how a younger listener — someone in their early 20s approaches Dirt, what they hear in it. I hear Gen-X’s heroin crisis for sure, and the loss of Staley in 2002 — a hard decade after this album’s release — and a lifetime of associations. I’ve lost friends and relatives to opiates, and I’ve said on multiple occasions that if not for the stabilizing force of having met my wife when I was 15, I’d have probably been right in there as well. And I don’t say it lightly. It’s a hard album to work out the separation between art and artist — its feel is so confessional lyrically — but as it should be, Dirt‘s abiding appeal is in its songs, whatever the context might be in which a given audience hears them.

Alice in Chains of course toured the universe supporting this record. They were headliners at the aforementioned Lollapalooza, along with Primus, and they deserved to be. In 1994, they released the Jar of Flies EP, which was the second mostly-acoustic short-form work they’d done behind earlier-1992’s Sap (discussed here), and though they’d return in 1995 with their self-titled third album (discussed here), and that’s not actually that long a break, it sure felt like forever waiting for that to show up at the time. That record pulled back on some of Dirt‘s sheer impact in favor of a more atmospheric approach, and was by all accounts mostly composed by Cantrell with him in a more forward position vocally owing to Staley‘s ongoing drug addiction, but was nonetheless both the grimmest work the band would ever do and still resolute in its craft. It was the end of the Staley era, and for a while, the band, who would eventually return in the mid-aughts before putting out Black Gives Way to Blue in 2009 with vocalist and rhythm guitarist William DuVall (also of Cantrell‘s solo group and Comes with the Fall) joining as the fourth member alongside Cantrell, Mike Inez (who had also played with Seattle legends Heart in the interim) and Kinney.

Reborn as a recording and touring act, Alice in Chains followed Black Gives Way to Blue with The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here in 2013 and 2018’s Rainier Fog (discussed here), the latter of which brought them to the point of having released as many albums without Staley as with him, and having developed a dynamic between Cantrell and DuVall that was more than mere reminiscence of things gone by, however obligated they might be (and rightly so, I wouldn’t say otherwise) to continue to perform Alice in Chains‘ ’90s work on stage. No getting away from the classics.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading. And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Magnetic Eye Records‘ Dirt [Redux] compilation (review here), which came out late last year and featured artists from the heavy rock sphere taking on Dirt track for track. Well worth the headfirst dive.

—

New Gimme Radio show today. 5PM on their app. Thanks if you can listen.

I’ve been trying desperately all week to keep my email under 40 unread/needing response. It’s currently at 50, so you can tell how well it’s been going. A couple press releases need doing-something-with. A few responses just aren’t going out. I can’t do everything, and I hate not getting back to people — especially people taking the time to send music because they possibly give a crap what I might have to say about it — but I made the decision long ago that if it was writing or email, I need to be doing the thing that has people reaching out to me in the first place. But still, email, Facebook messages, Instagram messages. That stuff piles up and gets overwhelming. I’m fortunate for it, I know. I remember when nobody got in touch.

Of course, having a three year old with a broken leg did not make the week any easier. We’ve been doing stuff all the while though. Yesterday we went to the Turtle Back Zoo, which is a Northern New Jersey cultural institution as far as I’m concerned. I went there as a kid too, and it’s way nicer now. The Pecan and I rode the train a couple times, rode the carousel, he rode the pony twice. I pushed him in the stroller — which I’m too tall for, so I have to lean forward to push it without kicking the wheels; it’s a pain in the ass (and back) and I do not particularly care for the stroller on principle, though there is some appeal in having him strapped into a thing rather than running all over the place, and given the busted shin, it’s the best option I’ve got — and put him on my shoulders for a while. He’s clearly less uncomfortable than he was a week ago at this time, which was just fucking miserable, and just starting to put weight on the foot and walk a bit while holding hands. He’s not ready to traipse around the zoo yet, but he can go from the stairs to the couch in the living room with help. We’ll get there. He’s certainly enjoying the time off from school.

It’s a holiday on Monday but I’m posting anyhow because Memorial Day is jingoistic bullshit. Maybe doing a video premiere? I’m not sure. Haven’t heard back. If not that, I’ll probably do myself a favor and review the Monster Magnet covers record. The rest of the week is fairly well packed with stuff. It’ll be good. I’m also filling out the next Quarterly Review, which currently looks to be six days minimum. I’ve got a seventh in with a question mark. Hope to start that June 28 and just let it roll through the July 4 holiday, but that requires some scheduling with The Patient Mrs., because, well, writing about 10 records a day for a week gets time-consuming.

And video interviews coming up in the next couple weeks with Heavy Temple (that’s tomorrow; I wanted to review the album first) and All Souls. The latter I really just wanted to give their livestream another plug, anything to help out, but I haven’t talked to Tony Aguilar since the Totimoshi days, so I’m looking forward to it just the same. It’ll be him and Meg Castellanos together. I like doing couple interviews haha. It somehow reinforces my fantasy of starting a podcast with my wife. Not about music, necessarily. I think it would more likely be about politics/news, likely with a good dose of Star Trek.

Dream for another day.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff.

FRM.

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Corrosion of Conformity, Wiseblood (1996)

It’s a classic either way, but I’m willing to go to bat for Wiseblood as the best Corrosion of Conformity record. Blasphemy!, you say. Controversy! Harumph! Harumph!

I agree it’s commonly accepted that 1994’s Deliverance (discussed here) is the Raleigh, North Carolina, band’s peak. The band themselves spent much of last year touring it again for its 25th anniversary, and in 2014, when they first reunited as the four-piece of bassist/sometimes vocalist Mike Dean, guitarist/backing vocalist Woodroe Weatherman, drummer/backing vocalist Reed Mullin (RIP 2020) and prodigal frontman guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan, it was tagged as the ‘Deliverance era’ lineup.

So why the defiance of common knowledge? Easy, Wiseblood is a better record. I talked about this a little bit a decade ago, but the key difference for me between the two landmark full-lengths — they both are, I would in no way deny it — is that with Deliverance, you kind of had to be there. I remember hearing “Clean My Wounds” on the radio and seeing the video on MTV. Same for “Albatross.” Deliverance has had an influence on bands that spans at least one generation, but if we’re looking at it purely from the level of songwriting, I’ll take Wiseblood almost every time.

Issued in October 1996 through Columbia Records with John Custer producing as ever, Wiseblood is without question a product of the CD era. It runs nearly 58 minutes long and brings together 13 tracks, including the advance singles “King of the Rotten” (the album opener), “Drowning in a Daydream,” and the slower-chugging “Man or Ash,” on which James Hetfield of Metallica put in a guest appearance on vocals alongside Keenan. But that was just a piece of the whole story. Wiseblood — like most commercial releases of the time — was not without filler, but in cuts like “Goodbye Windows,” “Long Whip / Big America,” “The Snake Has No Head,” “Wiseblood,” “Born Again for the Last Time,” the ultra-swaggering “The Door” and the subdued “Redemption City,” as well as those three songs that were sent to radio stations ahead of time, the band showed not only that Deliverance wasn’t a fluke, but that they could build off it and conjure even greater songwriting achievements. Wiseblood‘s title-track alone deserves to be pressed to a 12″, let alone the rest of the album. And as the record wound down, with the still catchy “Wishbone (Some Tomorrow)” following “Redemption City” and the satisfyingly speedy but largely forgettable “Fuel” and the almost-eight-minute instrumental jam “Bottom Feeder (El que come abajo)” closing out, even what might’ve been called filler retained quality and dynamic.

The hooks were everywhere. “Redemption City” (“what a pity…”), “Wiseblood” (“youngblood creepin’…”), “Goodbye Windows” (“I’d rather have holes in my eyes…”), “Long Whip / Big America” (“hey hey hey, what’s that game you play…”), “Drowning in a Daydream” (“there’s a man who watches over me…”), “Man or Ash” (“these are primitive — times!”), “Wishbone (Some Tomorrow)” (“twilight explodes in my time of the blind…”), and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have to do more than look at the titles “Born Again for the Last Time” or “The Door” or “King of the Rotten” to hear Keenan‘s voice singing them in my head. These songs continue to resonate even 24 years later, and speaking as a fan, they’ve aged well.

Of course, for a band who got as big as C.O.C. did at the time — “Drowning in a Daydream” was nominated for a Grammy in 1998 — every era will have its proponents, and C.O.C. have had enough eras to fulfill that impulse, whether it was their earlier trio days playing hardcore punk, or the beginning of Keenan‘s tenure with the band on the Karl Agell-fronted (later of Leadfoot) 1991 outing, Blind, on through the mid-’90s and into the 2000s with America’s Volume Dealer — slicker in production, still ace in craft — and the sans-Mullin 2005 In the Arms of God LP, after which the band went on pause as Keenan focused his time on Down, then proceeded without him for a self-titled (review here) in 2012 and 2014’s follow-up, IX (review here), before regrouping as a four-piece, touring like mad and eventually offering up 2018’s No Cross No Crown (review here), finding a middle-ground between nostalgia for the ’94-’96 era and the ensuing 20 years, essentially as an extension of the work the band was doing on the road.

With the band’s winding history, I understand how for a subsequent generation, they can be kind of intimidating to take on. 10 years ago, I advocated Wiseblood as the place to start, and I stick by that entirely. Deliverance was glorious — still is. The kind of record people dream of making. But Wiseblood, with its more developed melodies, plays between metal and hard, heavy and Southern rock and the sheer chemistry between the artists who made it, feels less connected to the time it was made. It’s always been in the shadow of its predecessor’s greater sales, and there’s no question which one begat the other — “King of the Rotten” feels like an answer to “Heaven’s Not Overflowing,” “Redemption City” to “Albatross,” and so on — but taken on its own merits, even up to the jam that unfolds across “Bottom Feeder (El que come abajo),” coalescing the interludes of the album prior into one longer feast of riffs and groove, I’ll still take Wiseblood, blasphemy or not. If you disagree, well, that’s fun too.

C.O.C., like everyone, have had their plans stifled by the realities of 2020. They would’ve headlined Desertfest this year in London and Berlin, and done more touring besides. Whatever happens for the rest of this year and the next and the next, the band’s accomplishments are legitimately the stuff of legend, and while the loss of Mullin earlier this year no doubt weighs heavy on the group, one can’t help but wonder if maybe they aren’t putting their downtime to use as so many others are and beginning to think about new material following up on No Cross No Crown. I’d take another C.O.C. record. That’s only ever something to look forward to.

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

—

My father used to tell me he prayed for death every day. One time, he showed me where a tooth was chipped where his mother beat him with a belt and the buckle knocked him in the mouth. I’ve been thinking about that image. About the kind of guilt that must instill, the kind of self-loathing. He threatened plenty enough, but my father never hit me. I guess that’s progress, right? Generational progress?

When I get frustrated at The Pecan, I try and respond with kindness. It doesn’t always work, mind you. But I try. Is that progress too? I don’t want to be angry at my son. I don’t want to instill him with that loathing that I took as inheritance. My birthright to being a miserable bastard. I take pills. I’m not now, but I’ve been in therapy. My father never did that. I asked him about it once and he said, “A pill won’t change who I am,” or some such. Now that I’m an adult, I have to remind myself that that’s an illness I know well, because if I don’t, I view it as weakness. Is that progress, I wonder.

Sirens go by. I know I’m getting older because the world seems more terrifying. I love my wife. It’s me I could do without.

I’ll go to the playground today, take The Pecan out for a long walk to help him balance his energy out a little. He needs that. I took him to the doctor yesterday for his 30-month well visit. The lockdown at the office was serious. Then he took a nap and I went to Costco. The lockdown at Costco was less serious. People out. People still dying. Open the beaches. No one look at each other and you’ll be fine.

Drink bleach.

Or inject it.

No Gimme show this week. Pre-empted, which is fine. It was was a repeat anyhow, and they asked if I minded. Shit no. They’re good to me. I can’t complain.

Next week I’m streaming the Geezer album as of about five minutes ago. Also an Apostle of Solitude video premiere, and a Lamp of the Universe premiere and hopefully a Black Rainbows review. Lot of Ripple Music and Heavy Psych Sounds around here lately. Those two should team up as a multinational underground conglomerate and just sign everybody. Ripplepsych Sounds.

Be well. Love always.

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Alice in Chains, Alice in Chains (1995)

I’m sure one exists, but I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a darker pop album than Alice in Chains‘ 1995 self-titled LP, and I just can’t come up with anything. Sure, most of its singles — opener “Grind,” the later “Again” with its inconsistent but catchy “boop-boop” hook, and even the acoustic-led “Heaven Beside You” — were rockers, but is 1992’s genre-defining classic Dirt was an exploration of the pain and longing of addiction, then surely the 64-minute, 12-song Alice in Chains captured something of its depths. Of course, it would be the band’s final album with frontman Layne Staley before the singer’s recession into heroin use and his eventual death in 2002 at the age of 34. That context, and the fact that until guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney released Black Gives Way to Blue in 2009 with then-new frontman William DuVall, it was their last record, period, unquestionably informs the listening experience, and songs like “Brush Away,” “Sludge Factory,” “Head Creeps,” “God Am,” “Nothin’ Song” and “Frogs” are that much darker for it, with the finale “Over Now” originally written by Cantrell about his girlfriend at the time, but seeming to mourn the band itself in the lines, “You know it’s been on my mind/could I stand right there/Look myself in the eye and say that it’s over now?/We pay our debt sometime.” One way or the other, there seemed to be an acknowledgement there that something was drawing to a close.

And so it was. Alice in Chains followed the 1994 EP Jar of Flies, which like the band’s preceding short release, 1992’s Sap (discussed here), was driven primarily by acoustic material — plus one goof track, lest they take themselves too seriously — which had followed the radio success of Dirt singles like “Would?” and “Rooster” with its own string of hits in “No Excuses” and “I Stay Away.” Neither of the self-titled’s harder singles — that’s “Grind” and “Again” — would have the same reach as “Heaven Beside You” or “Over Now,” but whether a given song was loud or quiet or brash and doomed as was “Sludge Factory” or even daring to show a little hope as was the particularly gorgeously harmonized “Shame in You,” which by my estimation is a lost treasure of the band’s discography, not the least for its meandering finish, which is something they rarely let themselves do, Alice in Chains was consuming and dark, varied in its execution but consistent in its message. With Cantrell — who would release his first solo album, Boggy Depot, three years later in 1998 and later tour with DuVall (also of Comes with the Fall) in his band — taking on the bulk of the songwriting duties, the songs had a largely unified perspective, and with Staley‘s addiction to heroin well documented as by then taking its toll on his ability to function in the band and more generally in life, it was the guitarist who stepped in to fill the void, essentially readjusting the balance that had been at work in Alice in Chains since (before) 1990’s Facelift, their debut album. Indeed, especially in light of Boggy Depot and its vastly-underrated follow-up, 2002’s Degradation Trip, Alice in Chains is very much emblematic of Cantrell‘s songwriting approach in its maturity, which of course would continue to manifest during Alice in Chains‘ second run beginning with their reunion in 2005.

That isn’t to minimalize Staley‘s contributions vocally, however. “Head Creeps” was a six-and-a-half-minute chasm of grim psychedelic impact and tension with his voice overtop, and though its guitar patterning was more indicative of Cantrell‘s poppier work, “God Am” still bore the haunting quality that Staley brought to “Sludge Factory” and “Brush Away” immediately before it, following “Grind” in an opening salvo that seemed to push further into an abyss before “Heaven Beside You” stepped in to provide some measure of respite. Playing that dynamic, and indeed Staley and Cantrell, off each other — with the always-inventive drumming of Kinney and Inez‘s clinic-in-class bass as a foundation — became the push and pull of Alice in Chains, and the material thrived on the overarching conflict. Listening to it nearly a quarter-century later, it does not sound like an easy record to have made, and by all reports, it wasn’t, but its emotional basis, troubled sensibility and sheer level of craft still resonate, whether it’s the manic “So Close” or the sweet melodies corrupted in “Frogs,” which moved from its solidified hook into a wandering nod-off of Staley seeming to predict his own death in mumbles as the instruments behind offered a darker take on “Shame in You”‘s wandering sensibility, this time feeling isolated and almost nihilistic. Is it any wonder that “Over Now” began with a sample of “Good Night” by jazz bandleader Ted Lewis? What else was there to say?

Naturally, though it seemed like it would be their last record after Staley‘s death, Alice in Chains wasn’t the last music the band produced in this incarnation. In 1996, the live recording of their appearance on MTV Unplugged — I remember watching it on its first airing; it was incredible — became a hit in its own right, and two songs, “Get Born Again” and “Died,” recorded in 1998 for inclusion with the Music Bank box set. They would be the last tracks Staley recorded with Alice in Chains, though he also appeared on a cover of Pink Floyd‘s “Another Brick in the Wall” on a 1998 movie soundtrack as part of the assembled one-off “supergroup” Class of ’99 with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and members of Jane’s Addiction. It was less than a career highlight.

Last year, Alice in Chains marked the release of their third post-Staley LP, Rainier Fog (discussed here), and the fact that they’ve gone 10 years with three records out with DuVall means they’ve at this point been around longer without him than with and put out as many albums. I won’t take away from the quality of Rainier Fog in manifesting a persona for Alice in Chains having moved forward in a way that even the prior 2013 outing, The Devil Put the Dinosaurs Here, and Black Gives Way to Blue couldn’t, but there are many for whom Staley‘s work in the band remains an essential facet. There are arguments to be made for either side, and frankly, I’m not interested in laying them out or begrudging a band whose work has legitimately changed my life their finding a path and continued success along it. Either way, their ’90s-era recordings stand as testament to the force they were at the time in creativity, performance and presence, and of those, Alice in Chains remains singularly affecting.

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

—

Been up early the last two days. Like 1:45AM. Yesterday I was like, “Duh, I’ll get up and get all my writing done and then I can just relax when the baby naps and that’ll be great because I have infinite energy and I can just sit and read and there’s no way I’ll immediately fall asleep or anything.” Clearly that was dumb. Today was less of a conscious choice. I was just up. I tried to go back to sleep for an hour, read some, and then finally decided to say screw it and start the day. Coffee, Alice in Chains, the whole bit. It’s quarter-after-four now. I had the notion of going to 7-Eleven at around three to buy a bag of ice, but wanted to get this post done first. I may yet head out. It’s like three minutes away. Not such a journey. I used to walk there when I was a kid, probably listening to Dirt or Suicidal Tendencies’ Art of Rebellion or whatever on my Walkman.

We were back in Massachusetts earlier this week. Monday, I guess it was. The Patient Mrs. was giving a talk on campus up there — one of her last duties to Bridgewater State unless you count emptying her office and teaching an online class — so I went up as well and packed vinyl and a bunch of other stuff from the kitchen and around. Most of what’s left is like stuff from closets and furniture. The closing date on that place is in about a month, so hopefully nothing falls through with the buyer between now and then and we can be done with it, get everything else out before we close. We came back down to Jersey on Tuesday and have been here since, are staying here through the impending terrible heat this weekend. No central air, but window units should do the job fairly enough. One hopes, anyhow. There’s a ton to do in this house. Everyone is overwhelmed. Tense. Could probably stand to get laid.

This was my grandmother’s house before she died, we’re buying it from my mother. It’s been cleaned up, but not really cleaned out, so as we’re basically moving a house’s worth of stuff into it from, you know, our house in Massachusetts, there’s a concurrent house’s worth of stuff we’re moving out from here. Some of that has been donated, some my mother has taken, some is stuff my sister was storing here, some is going to my cousin, some we’re keeping, etc., but everything is an emotionally fraught process, and there is a fucking ton of it. Plus we found a leak in the wall upstairs in the rain yesterday and god fucking knows what that portends in terms of repair. Six years ago, when we moved to MA, we just packed our shit and left. This has thus far been much more complicated, and we have a long way to go.

But eventually, that will result in a new dishwasher, and I sincerely look forward to that.

Today at 1PM Eastern is a new episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio. It’s my tribute to Maryland Doom Fest 2019, just playing some of the bands and talking about the festival a bit. It was a good time, so I wanted to highlight that. Call me nostalgic if you must.

Next week? Wolf Blood review, I think. With the AIC done, I’m listening to that record now and it’s pretty killer. Then maybe Morass of Molasses and we’ll see about the rest. Lo-Pan have a show in Teaneck next week that I’m going to hit up ahead of seeing them with C.O.C. in August, so I’ll review that — I don’t expect much in terms of lighting — and there are a couple sweet-ass The Obelisk Presents announcements coming as well, so keep an eye out.

The rest is and will be what it is and will be.

Everyone have a great and safe weekend. If you’re someplace warm, stay cool and hydrate. If you’re someplace cool, get some good snuggles going. Who doesn’t like snuggles?

Thanks again for reading. Forum, radio, merch.

The Obelisk Forum

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Mad Season, Above (1995)

Sometimes you just have to wonder how an artist or a band got away with making the record they made. Mad Season‘s Above was released in 1995, in the post-Kurt Cobain wain of the Seattle grunge era, and I suppose the enticing tagline for Columbia Records was probably something along the lines of, “Features members of Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees and Alice in Chains,” but even given that, with its ultra-dark cover art by vocalist Layne Staley (the Alice in Chains component) and a collection of correspondingly melancholic, mostly quiet and depressive-if-soulful songs, Above was hardly a fit alongside Celine Dion or Mariah Carey, from both of whom the label also released studio outings that year. “Lifeless Dead?” Come on.

Still, I remember hearing “River of Deceit” on the radio when it came out, so to say the least, it was a different era. Mad Season was the product of Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready meeting blues bassist John Baker Saunders in rehab, starting a trio with Skin Yard/Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin and finally recruiting Staley on vocals partially with the hope of getting him clean from what was by then an already well documented history of abusing heroin. I guess it just kind of happened that the aesthetic they hit on was a grown-up incarnation of the style their main outfits played — an adult grunge — still heavy and edgy in its approach, but given a sense of class through Saunders‘ low end and the patient flow within the tracks that felt both immediately accessible and decidedly non-commercial.

Above is awash in hooks, from the minimalist opener and longest track (immediate points) “Wake Up” with its gorgeous showcase of the sadness that no one since Staley has been able to convey and none of his contemporaries could match, through the more rocking “I’m Above,” the almost folkish “River of Deceit,” and down through the rolling “I Don’t Know Anything” and percussive, sax-laden lounge-vibing “Long Gone Day,” which is one of two inclusions on the original version of the record alongside “I’m Above” to feature Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan, pre-Queens of the Stone Age but already by that point established as a solo artist, to brilliant affect in a layered duet. But as catchy as it gets — and even the six-minute ramble “Artificial Red” is catchy — Above never feels cloying or like it’s grasping for its audience’s attention in the way that some later grunge records do, having given up the urgency that fueled them as the players moved from being punk and noise acts and into what would ultimately break them through to a wider audience and define a generation of rock and roll. It’s not by any means a friendly record.

A big part of that is directly attributable to Staley‘s vocal performance, and it’s a spirit that almost immediately following Above‘s release he’d take back with him to Alice in Chains for the recording of their later-1995 self-titled on songs like “Shame in You.” Though Above nearly digs itself a hole with the seven-minute guitar-led jam “November Hotel” as the penultimate cut, that only seems to make Staley‘s voice feel like that much more of a treasure when it shows up again late in the atmospheric finale “All Alone,” a wash of its own, no less immersive than the spacious keys and guitar, subtle percussion and gentle bassline that back it. As distinct as he was in his approach, there was just about no way he wouldn’t become a defining presence in Mad Season, and though the band would only do this one studio release before his death from an overdose in 2002 — 15 years ago now — his contributions to Above provide some of the clearest evidence of just how special he was as an artist and a once-in-a-generation figure, and of course, it’s the work that lives on.

In 2013, Columbia reissued Above in a deluxe edition with bonus material from a never-released second album with Lanegan as frontman (they worked under the name Disinformation at the time, circa 1997), and a DVD of live footage and more. Saunders also died of an overdose, in 1999, so a full reunion was never possible, but in addition to that reissue, McCready and Martin joined forces with Guns ‘n’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan — the economist — and Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell to perform a set in Jan. 2015 with the Seattle Symphony that was quietly released as a live album released later that same year. There was once again discussion of new material at the time, but to-date nothing has come to fruition.

The bottom line is Above feels even more resonant today than it did 22 years ago, and as always, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for listening.

—

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the passing, first reported yesterday and apparently the result of suicide, of Chris Cornell. I had already chosen to finish the week with this record when I saw the news, but though he made it longer than either Cobain or Staley, I don’t think anyone who appreciated any of his work in Soundgarden or elsewhere who wouldn’t say he was taken too soon, and all the more tragically by his own hand. For someone who touched so many lives and influenced a generation of singers in his wake — let alone someone with three teenage kids — to feel so empty while having so much to live for boggles the mind, but until you’ve been there, you don’t know.

Cornell was arguably the best singer of his Seattle-based generational contemporaries — Staley was more emotive but didn’t have the range to soar Glenn Hughes-style like Cornell could, Cobain was a punker, Lanegan’s a bluesman and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder might stand up as a comparison point in terms of charisma, but never had the force of delivery that seemed to come so naturally from Cornell. I’ve never been the biggest Soundgarden fan, but his is a significant, irreplaceable loss.

—

Maybe you saw, maybe you didn’t, but I announced on the social medias last weekend that The Patient Mrs. and I are expecting. It’s a boy, due somewhere around Oct. 15. He’s got a name, but mostly we’ve been calling him “The Pecan” because it sounds less threatening than “The Impending” — which was my alternative — and a few weeks ago, The Patient Mrs.’ you’re-going-to-have-a-baby app said the fetus was the size of “a Southern pecan,” which was hilarious to us both because how the hell big is that and what difference does it make if it’s Southern? If he’s born with a Molly Hatchet shirt on or some shit, I’m going to be really, genuinely surprised.

But anyway, that’s the big news I’ve been hinting toward around here. I mentioned the Pecan in my Roadburn coverage, briefly, and subsequently removed the reference, but a couple people caught it and I saw some speculation, so there you go. The Pecan. Due in October. Life changes.

Do I know how it will affect this site? Nope. My thing all along has been not knowing how whatever comes along will affect the site, and it’s worked out pretty well, so I’m gonna roll with that and go where it takes me.

Fatherhood. Oof.

Anyway, though conversations about said Pecan occupy just about my every day at this point, there’s still a while to go before the guy actually shows up and plenty to keep me busy in the meantime. For example! — my job is ending in less than a month. Unemployment. Again. I’ve learned a few valuable lessons in my year at Hasbro and I’m appreciative of that, but apart from the salary hit I can’t say I’m heartbroken to move on. Truth be told, I’ve never enjoyed working for anyone but myself. If I had any money to start a business, that’s what I’d do with it.

But I don’t. So maybe stay-at-home-dad for as long as I can and then see what comes along. If I can pick up something part-time and/or remote, all the better. Somebody has to need an editor, right?

On that note, here’s what’s up for next week, subject to change as always. Straight from the notes:

Mon.: Radio Adds, Desert Wizards video, and some cool Naxatras news.
Tue.: Elder review, Ephedra video premiere, update from Keep it Low and more.
Wed.: WhiteNails review/album stream, Year of the Cobra Six Dumb Questions.
Thu.: Trippy Wicked video premiere, maybe another track premiere (waiting to see what shakes out), otherwise a Demon Head review.
Fri.: Vokonis video premiere/album review.

That’s where we’re at now, though, yeah, some stuff is still up in the air.

Staying home this weekend, as opposed to driving to Connecticut, and hoping for a laid back couple days in the air conditioning watching baseball as one does during the summer. The Patient Mrs. and I were talking about going to see Alien Covenant tomorrow morning — 10:40AM IMAX showing, baby; we roll in style — but that’s tentative. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great and safe time.

Thanks for reaching, and please check out the forum and radio stream.

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C.O.C., Deliverance (1994)

You’d be more likely to win a fight against the sky than successfully argue against C.O.C.‘s Deliverance. Their 1994 fourth album and released as their first on Columbia Records a decade after their debut, Eye for an Eye, it was the record that marked the beginning of the Pepper Keenan era. Following 1991’s Blind, on which Keenan played guitar and sang on “Vote with a Bullet,” he stepped into the guitarist/vocalist role to fill the gap vacated by Karl Agell, playing alongside the founding trio of guitarist Woody Weatherman, bassist/vocalist Mike Dean and drummer/sometimes vocalist Reed Mullin. The change was palpable sonically. While Blind was a shift in itself, departing from the crossover hardcore punk/thrash of Eye for an Eye and its 1985 follow-up, Animosity, Deliverance pushed boldly into riff-led heavy Southern rock, and in so doing became a standard-bearer for the genre that still holds up 21 years later. Swamped with classic songs — and, at the time, commercial hits — like “Albatross” and “Clean My Wounds,” Deliverance is in many ways the quintessential heavy rock album, and even deeper cuts like “Shake Like You,” “My Grain” and “Shelter” offer no letup in quality. Like the best of the classics, to even attempt to estimate the scope of its influence would be futile, and it remains as relevant today as it was when it was released, if not more so.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, after several years and two albums by the original trio, Corrosion of Conformity have reunited with Keenan for a round of UK dates that, presumably, herald much more touring to come. Sooner or later, they’ll bring that show to the States. Keenan, who’s spent the last decade in Down following the release of C.O.C.‘s underrated 2005 outing, In the Arms of God, carries with him a commercial profile that the band seems to have embraced, playing bigger rooms and promising standards from the Deliverance album and its 1996 follow-up, Wiseblood, in the setlist. The question is inevitably whether or not the four-piece will construct a new album, but with each rehearsal video that surfaces or concert report that comes out, the anticipation for this form of C.O.C.‘s return grows more fervent. It might be a year or two before they get there, since they seem to be testing the waters on the road first, but unless something falls apart in a big way or for some reason the situation is untenable for the players involved, a new record seems fairly inevitable.

But of course, that’s speculation. In the meantime, enjoy the classic on its own terms and if you haven’t, dig into 2012’s self-titled and 2014’s IX, released with Dean, Weatherman and Mullin, because both records were badass and are in severe danger of being lost in the wake of this reunion. It would be a shame. Hope you dig it.

—

I’m not around Monday, so I’m going to try to get a podcast up. Have to take a defensive driving class because the problem with Massachusetts driving is definitely me and not Massachusetts driving. Right. Whatever. I’ll try to get a podcast up Sunday night or early Monday morning, but I’ve also been traveling this week, so it’s been a total mess. Have also slept like crap and been out of my mind generally, hence the lack of reviews. Le Betre/King Buffalo on Tuesday, Radio Adds, Acid King and Blackout after that. Also need to do that Monolord record and about a million fucking others. I can’t even keep it all straight in my head. Whatever.

If you’ve emailed me or Facebooked me this week and I haven’t gotten back, I’m sorry. I’m working on it.

Hope you have a great and safe weekend. Please check out the forum and radio stream.

The Obelisk Forum

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Judas Priest, Stained Class (1978)

The Judas Priest catalog has a few classics in it, or I guess they wouldn’t be Judas Priest, and while they’ve joined the ranks of those metal bands who seem to retire as often as not, there’s little arguing one can do with their early years — they’re the raw building blocks on which heavy metal would be constructed. And as much as Black Sabbath gets credit for inventing the sound, listening to a record like 1978’s Stained Class, there’s little doubt Priest played a major role in shaping the style and visual aesthetic of the genre.

Stained Class is the fourth Judas Priest album, following 1977’s Sin after Sin, 1976’s Sad Wings of Destiny and their 1974 debut, Rocka Rolla, which gets slagged a lot for not being as “metal” as what followed, but offers plenty for fans of heavy ’70s rock. Songs like “Better by You, Better than Me” (a cover of Spooky Tooth), “Exciter,” “Invader,” the ultra-badass “Saints in Hell” and “Beyond the Realms of Death” are monuments of the soon to rise New Wave of British Heavy Metal, arriving two years before Iron Maiden released their first album and roughly concurrent to Motörhead‘s 1977 self-titled debut. Sabbath at this point were falling apart, releasing Never Say Die in ’78 before the big split with Ozzy, and while early metal seemed to be floundering all around them, Judas Priest would emerge to lead the style into the ’80s, to what many still regard as its peak era.

Not a bad legacy to wind up with. Of course, the mob went wild when Priest issued British Steel in 1980 (1978’s Killing Machine appeared between Stained Class and that album), and that helped propel the Birmingham five-piece to their iconic status, but a couple years earlier, when Stained Class hit, it did so with more of a workman feel. Comprised at that point of guitarists Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, vocalist Rob Halford, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Les Binks, they were a band who knew what they were going for and who knew who they were even as pop consciousness shifted toward the rawer and less superficially pretentious punk of the day. I won’t take anything away from that either — if you ever hear me badmouth the Ramones, please alert the authorities that I’ve been kidnapped and replaced by a cyborg with shitty taste — but I think time has proved Judas Priest were right in sticking to their guns.

This is the last week-ending full-length of 2014, so I hope you enjoy.

—

Why Saturday and not Friday as usual? Well, The Patient Mrs. and I got home a little bit after midnight from about 72 hours straight of Xmas family time. It was delightful, and draining. A final two-hour trip north from Connecticut and by the time we got in, we didn’t even have energy enough to bring in presents from the car. It’ll happen today. Of course, not closing out the week before I went to bed wound up being the wrong choice since I was up until two and then up again from about 5:30 to 8 this morning — something just didn’t feel right — so I got mine in the end for veering from the routine even in this small way. Take that, me.

If you celebrated, I hope you had a good ol’ time. This week coming up is New Year’s, so things get even crazier. The Patient Mrs. and I will head back down to New Jersey in the middle of the week (Tuesday night, I believe) for more festivities and wahthaveyou, but I’ve also decided to close out 2014 with a bang around here. I’ve got stacks of CDs on my desk that have come in for review and it’s time to get them gone, so what I’ve decided to do is a series I’m going to call “Last Licks.” It’ll be 10 reviews per post (obviously each writeup will be relatively brief), Monday to Friday this coming week, rounding up stuff I want to get in before the year ends, and that’ll be that for 2014. Yeah, I know it’ll be 2015 by next Friday, but just roll with me on it. It’ll be good.

So that’s 50 reviews next week. Keep an eye out. Ha.

I also have some news to catch up on, so I’ll work that in where and when I’m able, and we’ll have the results of the Readers Poll — did you get your list in? — hopefully on the first, but maybe the second if Slevin is busy or tells me to screw off, which he’d be well within his rights to do. It’s been a close race the whole month and has been exciting to watch, and I’m thankful to everyone that’s taken part so far.

Thanks also to everyone who shared the lists that went up this week and the podcast as well. I know it wasn’t much for quantity of posts the last couple days, but I hope the quality made up for some of that.

Alright, I’m going to get more coffee and spend the remainder of this lovely day sitting on my ass. Enjoy the holiday weekend. Be safe, have fun, and we’ll see you back here Monday to close out 2014 in style.

Please check out the forum and radio stream.

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Alice in Chains, Sap (1992)

I don’t think I really need to go out of my way to justify including Sap as a heavy work. Sometimes I wonder what I would’ve thought of Alice in Chains had I been 15 or 20 years older than I was when they broke big, if the whole thing would’ve seemed as ridiculous to me then as a lot of modern alternative and pop hard rock seems to me now. Like Primus, of whom I’ve expressed a similar enduring affection, Alice in Chains hit me at just the right time. Dirt came out in Sept. 1992, and that would be the first of their albums that I heard. I was 11 years old.

Their post-reunion stuff hasn’t really interested me — I bought a used copy of Black Gives Way to Blue not so terribly long after it came out, but hardly listened to it. I heard part of one song from the one they did last year on the radio and it had that computerized wall of sound guitar anti-tone thing going for it, like Nickelback with a pitch-corrected Jerry Cantrell harmony. A futuristic nightmare in which something that once seemed so pure, on Facelift, Sap, Dirt, Jar of Flies, and the self-titled (which gets written off a lot but was actually really, really dark), comes back as unaware self-parody. Robots impersonating flowers. Food: Now with more flavor. Somewhere in a nameless city, Rowdy Roddy Piper puts on a pair of sunglasses.

But this. Beautiful. At least for the four songs of Sap proper, and then they get into the silly bonus track lest they be taken too seriously. I had this on earlier this week, turned up loud, was singing along to notes I used to be able to hit I guess before I turned 30 and finally hit puberty. My intention was to close out this week with something else, something a little more “the norm” as much as there is one, or at least something that’s not such an unrepentant downer, but this was more honest to where my head’s been at the last few days so there wasn’t really a choice. If it’s not your thing, or maybe it didn’t get into you when you were the right age, I’d be happy to hear about it in the comments.

—

Sorry about that whole “no posts” thing yesterday. I try to avoid that whenever I can, at least get something up. Yesterday The Patient Mrs. and I were on the road all day coming back from a mid-week trip south to Jersey. There’s a good chance this will come up again. I’ll try to give some notice or post what I can. I do my best.

Lots of news this week. Lots of videos. Not a lot of reviews. Here are the next five album reviews I’m going to write for this site. Ready? Weedpecker, Colour Haze (the Ewige Blumenkraft reissue), Conan, Mammatus and Papir. I really fucking hope it’s not a month before I get those done, but if it is, fuck it. That’s what I want to write about so that’s what I’m going to write about. I spend an awful lot of time feeling obligated and like I’m behind on shit. Well, I am behind, a lot, but when it comes to it, I do this to have a good time and write about music I enjoy, so if you’re not one of those next five reviews, I’m sorry but you’re gonna have to wait a little longer. Please know that your patience is appreciated.

I did a killer interview the other day with Rev. Jim Forrester about the Sixty Watt Shaman reunion. I’m not sure when I’ll have the time to transcribe it — Conan is next, then Alcest — but I’ll get there. I wish I had more time. Also money. Also abdominal definition. Also the ability to express emotions beyond frustration. It’s a long list. I wish and wish.

But life is what happens while you sit around and wish on bullshit you either can or can’t make real, so fuck it. I hope your week was incredible like the first time you heard Sabbath and it clicked, and I hope your weekend follows suit. If you stick around, I’ll have a new podcast coming either Sunday night or Monday morning, and there’s a lot of other silly nonsense to come as well next week other than whatever reviews I can get done. I hope you’ll hang out.

Thanks all, enjoy Sap, and please check out the forum and radio stream.

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