Alice In Chains

Decidedly Weak By Alice In Chains' Standards.

Review Score:

(6/10)
Personally, I think Alice in Chains made a wise decision stopping the production of albums after this one... because they really started to stray too far from their roots, musically. I don't mean their roots as a grungy rock band, but as a soulful rock band.

The main problem with the band's self titled album is that many songs just lack the heart of the band's previous efforts. Remember how Staley almost sounded like he was starting to cry in Man In The Box? Or when he seemed to get really psyched up during the heavier portions of Rooster? Don't expect to find any of that here. Layne somehow sounds very bored in most of this album's songs. And a lot of the tracks just lack the catchy songwriting of previous AICs. Rather, they try to go for a darker, more moody tone. But the end result is some occasionally bland music.

That's not to say there aren't a few good songs here. There are several, actually. Heaven Beside You is an excellent track, and Sludge Factory should definitely take you back to the band's Dirt days. But the remaining songs simply range from being okay (Again, Frogs, Over Now, Head Creeps) to decidedly weak (Grind, God Am, Brush Away). Grind, in particular, shows Alice In Chains straying further from their roots than they ever did before. Not that that's a bad thing, but it just doesn't work for me. The E-minor tuning was a bad idea for an AIC song IMO, and the choruses are a little grating (it almost sounds like the band was trying to cash in on the major-key alternative music that was popular at the time).

On the whole, with the exception of a few songs like Heaven Beside You and Head Creeps, I'm afraid I just didn't enjoy this album as much as previous efforts. Perhaps by any other band, I would have enjoyed it more. But for the band that gave us hard rock classics like Dirt and Facelift, it's fairly weak. I'm not saying the band shouldn't change, nor am I saying they sold out as some claim they did. But the album as a whole just seems like an experiment gone wrong in my opinion. Fortunately, they made up for it with their excellent Unplugged performance.

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