Some of my best friends are Alice in Chains (often stylized as "AiC") fans. I am not. I don't hate the band, but I don't love them either. We certainly occupied the same time and circles. I never owned one of their albums, but when I started listening thoroughly to them for the first time in 2025 I recognized a lot. In the late 90s I'd be in some bar, listening to rock radio or some cover band, and this stuff would be playing - often. They were a very popular rock band. I like "grunge" and I like "hard rock," but I don't like this stuff. It's no Nirvana, but granted- they have their own sound. I guess that's the problem. Their sound is depressing. It's sludgy, but not in a good heavy, metal way. Plus the the imagery is consistently unappealing, morbid and grotesque. I mean, look at the band name: they took Alice in Wonderland and put her in bondage. And the singing! BLAH. It's all wining and moaning. You, sir, are no Eddie Vedder. They are known for their consistent harmonies, and alright- that's something. But when I saw them recently at Ozzy's last concert, granted in 2025 well past their prime, not only was the original vocalist long-dead but the other guy was barely audible. So now they are know for their mediocrity - and staying power? It's not my jam, but let's give it a try.
Their first album, Facelift (1990), has actually got a few good songs to open the album, including their breakthrough hit, "Man in the Box." But the album goes downhill quickly. It is front-loaded with the lead-single, the memorable opener "We Die Young," and the aptly brooding "Sea of Sorrow," but then descends into forgettable middling rock. Sewing eyes shut, shoving dogs' faces into shit, and peeling the skin off the face of some "little girl" is all par for the course here, and I just want it to end. I guess the pseudo-Eastern influences in their sound is supposed to add to the exotic spookiness? Here's their creepy-ass video:
I hear metal evolving into grunge here. However, it sure seems like they let a little too much hair metal seep into their sound. (The lead singer came from a glam metal band; the guitarist was in a funk band, and you can hear that too.) And wow they use a lot of guitar effects. I think they are using the Peter Frampton talk-box thing on "Man in the Box," a healthy dose of phase throughout, and I never heard so much wah-wah pedal and distortion at the same time. It's worth noting that I probably heard AiC for the first time on Headbanger's Ball on MTV, where I also first saw Nirvana...along with plenty of actual metal. The point is, this was a pretty big deal at the time: "the first album from Seattle's Grunge movement to be certified gold." Yet, look who they opened for at first: Van Halen, Poison, Extreme. WTF even decade is this? Later, they are the opening slot on the legendary Clash of the Titans tour in 1991, with Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer; infamous for the chairs getting ripped up at MSG - and for me not being allowed to go by my parents.
They try to capitalize on grunge by quickly releasing a follow-up EP. Their fans might disagree (I know they have some because there's a recent-ish live album out there somewhere), but 1992's Dirt is pretty much the only other good album. It's actually even more successful yet darker than the first, with little of the fun reside that stuck to their previous metal elements. "Rooster" was another modern rock hit that got a ton of airplay on "modern rock" radio and MTV. "Would?" might be my favorite Alice in Chains song; it appeared appropriately enough on the Singles soundtrack, after they pop-up in the movie, but seems tacked to the end of the album here. "Down in a Hole" is definitely an Alice in Chains song too. Then, like the last album, it falls apart, quickly. Is "God Smack" where the band Godsmack got their name from? (Spoiler: YES) Because it's a pretty bad song and now I'm afraid to listen to Godsmack. The real problem is from the song "Junkhead," which hardly breaks any new ground or offers a fresh perspective on junkyism. If anything, it engages in inexcusable glorification:
You can't understand a user's mind
But try with your books and degrees
If you let yourself go and opened your mind
I'll bet you'd be doing like me
And it ain't so bad.
First of all, fuck you. "Books and degrees" and "a user's mind" are not mutually exclusive, so maybe some of us do know what the fuck we are talking about. I'll just say it: maybe it is a good thing that this junky ODed himself. If it saved one or more teenagers from reading and believing a bullshit lyric like that than I say, small price to pay. And shoutout to all the music fans in 1994 who thought they were going to see AiC as the opening act and instead got...Candlebox. Somehow Staley found time for solo projects and to join the "grunge supergroup" Mad Season. Guess how many members of that band ODed? Two, not including occasional guest vocalist Chris Cornell.
The next EP has a more commercial sound (and achieved more commercial success), at least on the hit single; much of the brief album is a meandering waste, though I do enjoy the instrumental track a bit. Anyway, "No Excuses" sounds like a grunge band pulling its punches and it was a huge #1 hit. Sometimes I really don't get streaming numbers: "No Excuses" has got 100 million less spins than the lesser-known "Nutshell," which also happens to be an awful acoustic ballad. It blew up after they play MTV's Unplugged. But also, "The ongoing tradition of Jerry Cantrell dedicating the song to the band's late members, Layne Staley and Mike Starr, further cemented its status as a beloved and meaningful part of their legacy." In 2013, it was ranked No. 9 on Rolling Stone's readers' poll "The 10 Saddest Songs of All Time." This band is depressing AF - and they are just getting started.
This whole thing goes to shit pretty fast after that though because...well, basically, heroin. It's a long, slow, sad spiral for lead singer Paul Staley: his last good album was in 1994, but he didn't die until 2002. Granted, the guy tried: he was in rehab for heroin right away, but then...it doesn't work out.
There's a self-titled album in 1995 that leans into the worst indulgences from their previous work. It did well, but it bored the hell out of me - and they don't/can't tour in support of it. Like Nirvana, they do Unplugged as a sort of swansong, and it works alright. But the guy was visibly fucked-up at the performance (nearly the band's last for almost a decade) and he kept ODing until he finally did so fatally. Then former bassist Mike Starr also ODed a few years later; this was no doubt a difficult band to be in. Perhaps even more so when they got suddenly very famous.
The band went on hiatus, but came back in 2005 with a new vocalist. That version of the band is still around, so ironically they lasted longer than the original lineup's 5 years or so. While I am sure this is cool for their fans who get to hear the classics played live, their newer albums leave much to be desired. Hey, maybe it's just me because I didn't like it from the start. I thought their self-titled non-debut was rock-bottom, but unfortunately we have three more albums after that. In their defense, I almost would not have even known there was a newer single unless someone told me. He gets the assignment.
There are three indistinguishable albums during this period: Black Gives Way to Blue (2009), The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (2013), and Rainier Fog (2018). I promise, they are not bad. But they are not good either. Just decent, unimpressive riff rock. Maybe, and here's the weird part, these are even better than those earlier albums - in the sense that it is all more tolerable in the longer term, not that the songs are better. Sometime there are glimpses that this new version of the band is alllllright: to promote Black Gives Way to Blue, "the band released an EPK featuring all four of the members being interviewed while the Kiss makeup is being applied on them." They also made a full-on mockumentary. And, props for covering "Tears" in tribute to Rush; it works! In 2018 they also played on a glass floor on the Seattle Space Needle. OK
Ultimately, it is the gloomy, malevolent sound and imagery that I'm just not interested in. Yet somehow, if it was more extreme, and not the MTV/radio version of that, it would better. Stop comparing this band to Black Sabbath - it does neither band any favors. The biggest tragedy here is that they are just self-aware enough. Staley talks about kids coming up to him to tell him that they are high on heroin and him being like, "this is exactly what I did NOT want to happen," even as he battles the addiction. The others guys later admitted they were basically all struggling. The worst part is they all talk about pulling back, and taking their wise hiatus to avoid dyeing in public, but that ends up happening for two of them anyway. At least the remaining guitarist and new vocalist show us all how you can keep doing what you love for many years if you just keep it clean: even if what you love is maybe not so great, that's still better than killing yourself in front of everyone slowly.
