New Alice in Chains video! Hollow!

Alice in Chains has a sick new video out for their new single!

The song is great, it sounds like Alice in Chains trying to do a slow Ozzy-era Black Sabbath tune.  I like it when grunge bands do these kind of songs ('New Damage' by Soundgarden is in this vein) where they give a hat-tip to the original metal band Black Sabbath!!

The other thing I like about the video is its sci-fi theme!  Dude this music video combines so much stuff I like... grunge, Black Sabbath, and sci-fi...

My only concern with Alice in Chains coming out with this is that it might saturate the market with grunge now that Soundgarden is back too!  If memory serves the Rolling Stones and Beatles never released an album in the same year so that they would not over-saturate the market with British-Invasion rock.

Well it does look like Hollow is just a single and the rest of the album isn't due for a-while so perhaps my concern is pre-mature.  Yes Soundgarden and Alice in Chains are back and Generation X is going to rock on!! 

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies

Generally I don't like EPs.  I feel like I am spending too much money for too little.  However with 'Jar of Flies' that is certainly not true!

'Jar' is one of the greatest EPs EVER!  This thing really shows just how talented AIC are.  Not only could they rock with electric guitars, but they can do it with acoustic instruments as well!!  

'Jar' really throws down the gauntlet... of the 'Big Four of Grunge' acts, which is most musically diverse???

I would take Nirvana out of the running since they didn't last long enough to accumulate a large enough number of songs.

Pearl Jam?  Well they are limited to only having one baritone vocalist (Vedder) without a lot of range so I am going to take them out of the running (besides I don't really like Pearl Jam to be honest and have always preferred Mother Love Bone anyways...)

So this leaves a battle royale between AIC and Soundgarden.  SG certainly changed from punkish grunge (first two records) to Alternative Metal ('Louder Than Love' & 'Badmotorfinger') to dark psycehedlic rock.  But SG never really tried doing any sort of acoustic type stuff, the way AIC did with 'Jar'.  Chris Cornell certainly has the vocal chops to try different things (and he did during his solo career) but one gets the feeling that SG just always felt more comfortable being a 'electric only' type of band.  Like they needed to have huge stacks of amplifiers to play and stuff.

AIC went for broke and went where-ever they felt like going and 'Jar' is a testament to that.  In fact after listening to this I am giving them a lot more credit as a band in general!

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Awesome record, but I am one of the few who don't think it is one of Alices best...

After listening to 'Dirt' recently it has only confirmed my opinion formed in the last few years that this album in todays World sounds way dated and is desperately in need of being re-mastered.

The guitars are way out front in the mix.  Naturally one assumes this is what Alice wanted when it was released in like 1992, however now it just sounds bad!  Compared to some of todays contemporary albums one can not hear the drums and bass!  

However when ones takes away this flaw they can hear a great record.  'Them Bones' is a total heavy classic that justifies Alices classification as a Metal Band and one-time opener for Slayer.

My other favorite song on this album is 'Would?' that is about one of my late favorite singers, Andrew Wood.  There have been several songs written posthumously about him and this is one of my faves.

Alice in Chains - Facelift

Alice in Chains debut is a mighty introduction.  Few bands have crafted such a good first album.

One of the great things about Alice in Chains is that they are sort of like Celtic Frost, every album sounds different'.  'Facelift' is just a straight ahead (Grunge) Rocker.

Layne had a pretty good voice.  It is too bad that I just don't like real 'high' voices though (except for maybe Dio!)