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.

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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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[Click play above to stream Howling Giant’s “Rooster” from Magnetic Eye Records’ Dirt [Redux] Alice in Chains tribute. LP/CD/DL out Sept. 18 with preorders here.]

Says Howling Giant’s Zach Wheeler:

“To be honest, getting ‘Rooster’ was a bit intimidating as it’s one of their most popular songs. We wanted to pay tribute to Alice in Chains as much as possible while giving the song that special Howling Giant sauce. We changed a few things around, but tried to reinforce the melodies that make the song so memorable in the first place.”

Says Howling Giant’s Tom Polzine:

“When I was growing up in Buffalo, Minnesota, there was a local band called Blood Root Mother made up of some dudes that were probably four or five years older than me. I remember sneaking out of my house to see them perform at this rundown venue called The Vault. The Vault was run by some 20 year olds that skipped college in order to renovate that old antique shop into a dirty DIY venue. If dirty and uncomfortable was the vibe they were going for, they nailed it. Anyway, Blood Root Mother were tight as hell and I’ll always remember their cover of ‘Rooster’ as one of the most moving performances I witnessed from a bunch of local, lovable scumbags. The energy was so raw, and the volume was overwhelming. I think that witnessing those guys performing that song in particular is the reason I started playing in rock bands in high school, and why I still play today.”

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Released in September 1992, Alice in Chains‘ second full-length, Dirt, is a generational landmark. It remains one of a select few records of its era — along with Nirvana‘s Nevermind, Pearl Jam‘s Ten, Soundgarden‘s Badmotorfinger, and maybe one or two others — that helped define the “grunge” sound for which Seattle, Washington, would become almost inextricably known. With an underlying-and-at-times-right-up-front theme of drug addiction and ensuing personal fallout, Dirt was grimmer and could be more aggressive than most of its still-commercially-viable major label contemporaries, and as a result always had some more appeal to metal fans than, say, Pearl Jam, who were strictly a hard rock band at the time. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell‘s now-classic riffs and vocals, Sean Kinney‘s inventive drums, the fluid bass work of Mike Starr and Layne Staley‘s voice that would prove inimitable despite the attempts of three decades’ worth of singers — these essential elements came together around a group of particularly memorable songs, some radio hits, some B sides, and of course, “Iron Gland” for good measure, and served as the proverbial lightning in the bottle and the standard by which the band’s output ever since has been judged.

In continuing its tribute series of full album releases by embarking on a Dirt [Redux], Magnetic Eye Records takes on a no less crucial album than when the label put together compilation tributes to Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix. There are some recognizable acts from the Magnetic Eye stable as well as others clearly given to celebrating the work itself, and those who remain loyal to the original versions of the songs while other groups prefer to bring their appointed track into their own sonic context. Like the original Dirt, Dirt [Redux] of course boasts 13 tracks — it’s a whole-album tribute; it wouldn’t do to leave something out — though its runtime is longer than the original, at 63 minutes as opposed to 57. The tracklisting reads as follows:

1. Thou – Them Bones
2. Low Flying Hawks – Dam That River
3. High Priest – Rain When I Die
4. Khemmis – Down in a Hole
5. These Beasts – Sickman
6. Howling Giant – Rooster
7. Forming the Void – Junkhead
8. Somnuri – Dirt
9. Backwoods Payback – God Smack
10. Black Electric – Iron Gland
11. -(16)- – Hate to Feel
12. Vokonis – Angry Chair
13. The Otolith – Would?

Their take on “Would?” — tracked by Alice in Chains first for an appearance on the soundtrack of the film Singles then reused on the album — marks the debut recording from post-SubRosa outfit The Otolith, and arrives with no shortage of anticipation. Bookending with “Them Bones” as interpreted by New Orleans art-sludgers Thou, the atmospheric breadth brought to the finale is a standout on the release and, at that point, one more instance of a band making the track their own. Thou‘s blend of harsh and cleaner vocals notwithstanding, they largely keep to the original tempo and arrangement of the leadoff track, whereas Low Flying Hawks take the subsequent “Dam That River” — a hooky follow-up to the opener — and turn it into an ambient drone only vaguely related to the original.

And why not? There’s no rule that says a band has to do an impression rather than an interpretation, and as Dirt [Redux] plays out, the likes of Khemmis, These Beasts, Howling Giant, Forming the Void, -(16)- and Vokonis bring their own spin. Khemmis could hardly be a better fit for the emotive doom of “Down in a Hole,” and the crunch These Beasts deliver on “Sickman” is an intense precursor to what L.A.’s -(16)- do with “Hate to Feel” later on. Feeling very much like the vanguard of an up and coming generation of progressive heavy rock, Howling Giant, Forming the Void and Vokonis boldly tackle their respective cuts, with “Rooster” getting a bolstered melody (no easy feat), “Junkhead” receiving a newfound nodder groove, and “Angry Chair” highlighting a rhythmic complexity that is both a late surprise and oh, oh, oh so very Swedish.

To complement these forays, Somnuri find a glorious and elusive middle-ground on the album’s title-track, the Brooklynite trio not giving “Dirt” a total makeover so much as an organic-feeling performance that captures the subtle spaciousness that was so much a part of Dirt‘s lonely feel in the first place — all those sometimes empty reaches of its mix. Earlier, Chicago’s High Priest offer perhaps the most impressive vocal included on the redux with “Rain When I Die,” with the as-yet-underrated, very-much-need-to-put-an-album-out group play to their own Alice in Chains influence. Ditto that Backwoods Payback, who bleed their love of the original through their raw interpretation of “God Smack,” finding a space somewhere between punk, post-hardcore and heavy rock that is theirs alone on this release and in the wider underground sphere. These cuts serve the vital function of bringing Dirt [Redux] its sense of homage, making the tribute a tribute, and giving a listener who might not be familiar with all the bands on the Magnetic Eye roster a chance to reorient before, say, These Beasts unfurl their pummeling rendition of “Sickman” or Low Flying Hawks taffy-pull “Dam That River” to suit their own whims.

One would be remiss not to point out that the 43-second interlude “Iron Gland” is here covered by Black Electric, which features Magnetic Eye Records‘ own Mike Vitali (also ex-Ironweed and Greatdayforup) on guitar. Their version is almost eerily reminiscent of the original, on which Slayer‘s Tom Araya sat in for vocals, and gives way to -(16)-‘s roughed-up “Hate to Feel” with a similar flow to the progression between the two tracks on Dirt proper. If you come out of this Dirt [Redux] with a hankering to listen to Alice in Chains, don’t be surprised. I’ll admit to having an attachment to the album that borders on the familial, and whatever they do with it arrangement-wise, I have nothing but respect for anyone brave enough to cover songs that have so much specific heart and style behind them. Inevitably a listener’s experience with Dirt [Redux] will depend on their own context with the original record as well as with the bands involved, but when all is said and done, it is a more than worthy inclusion in Magnetic Eye‘s [Redux] series — Black Sabbath would seem to be next — and it points to just how broadly Alice in Chains‘ influence has spread over the last three decades. You can’t really go wrong.

Various Artists, Dirt [Redux] (2020)

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