Alice in Chains (Album)
| Alice in Chains | ||||
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| Alice in Chains studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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admission |
April - August 1995 |
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| Label (s) | Columbia Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP, MC |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
64:52 |
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| occupation |
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Toby Wright , Alice in Chains |
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Studio (s) |
Bad Animals Studio, Seattle |
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Alice in Chains , sometimes called Tripod or Three , is the third studio album by the grunge band Alice in Chains . It was released on November 21, 1995 on Columbia Records . It is the last with singer Layne Staley before his death on April 5, 2002 . It reached double platinum in the USA .
style
The Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the songs on the album Alice in Chains were dipped as usual in a "morass of surging guitars and pounding bass." This time there would be superimposed “ fluorescent ” guitar licks and rising vocal harmonies, which made the music as “terribly beautiful” and complex as a “ Hieronymus Bosch painting”. Between these harder, often monotonously and slowly played pieces like Grind or Sludge Factory , the two calmer songs Heaven Beside You - an acoustic ballad - and finally Over Now appear. Over Now's intro is a sample of a record of Good Night by Ted Lewis & His Orchestra. At God Am a sample of a water pipe was used.
The lyrics on the self-titled album are not drug-focused as much as on Dirt , although a few lines can be read in that direction. Layne Staley said he now had an aversion to writing about it because he didn't want fans to think he was glorifying drugs. In addition, drug use is now turning against him, "and now I'm walking through hell, and this sucks." Staley stated that he wrote down in the lyrics on Alice in Chains , "whatever came to mind." They are therefore formulated quite “loose”. Heaven Beside You was written by Jerry Cantrell when he was dealing with a breakup with his longtime girlfriend.
History of origin
After Alice in Chains released the acoustic EP Jar of Flies in January 1994 , the band, exhausted from long touring, deliberately took a break and did not give any interviews during this time. At the same time there were reports of drug use by the band, especially from singer Layne Staley. Staley had meanwhile sung the album Above for his side project Mad Season , which was released in 1995. In April of this year the band went to the Bad Animals studio in Seattle to record the successor to the successful Dirt album with producer Toby Wright ( Slayer , Corrosion of Conformity ) by August . Since only a few of the songs were finished - including Sludge Factory , a song that Jerry Cantrell had written and recorded back in 1988 - the rest were created in the studio jam sessions .
After the release in November 1995, four singles were released: Grind , Heaven Beside You , Over Now and Again . Cantrell is the lead vocalist on three of them, and he also wrote the lyrics for those songs. The album entered the US charts as No. 1 and sold excellently there, but could not achieve comparable sales successes in other countries, such as Germany. The band did not tour to any major extent for the album as Staley did not want to. Drummer Sean Kinney, on the other hand, said he would like to play more live. In June 1996 the band played four shows supporting Kiss . In the same year the MTV Unplugged concert was recorded and released on CD.
reception
Steve Huey from allmusic called the self-titled album the “best produced” of the band, its best moments were among the “most mature” that the band had released. However, there are some "slow spots", places where the songs are rather weak. The rating was three out of five stars. In Rock Hard , Michael Rensen wrote that Alice in Chains delivered "the most haunting and most eerily beautiful soup that the so-called alternative scene has to offer", but with this album the band did not come close to previous releases. He awarded eight out of ten points. In Rolling Stone , however, Jon Wiederhorn called the album Alice in Chains "liberating and enlightening" compared to its predecessors. It is the "musical rebirth" of the band. He awarded four out of five stars.
Track list
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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- Grind - 4:45 (Music / Text: Cantrell)
- Brush Away - 3:22 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney, Inez. Text: Staley)
- Sludge Factory - 7:12 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney. Text: Staley)
- Heaven Beside You - 5:27 (Music: Cantrell, Inez. Text: Cantrell)
- Head Creeps - 6:29 (Music / Text: Staley)
- Again - 4:05 (Music: Cantrell. Text: Staley)
- Shame in You - 5:35 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney, Inez. Text: Staley)
- God Am - 4:08 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney, Inez. Text: Staley)
- So Close - 2:45 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney. Text: Staley)
- Nothin 'Song - 5:40 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney. Text: Staley)
- Frogs - 8:18 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney, Inez. Text: Staley)
- Over Now - 7:03 (Music: Cantrell, Kinney. Text: Cantrell)
Web links
- Alice in Chains on Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.riaa.com: Alice in Chains , accessed March 11, 2010.
- ↑ a b www.rollingstone.com: Review Alice in Chains by Jon Wiederhorn
- ↑ a b c www.rollingstone.com: Jon Wiederhorn: Alice in Chains: To Hell and Back
- ↑ a b c Marcel Anders: Leisure in Abundance , in Rock Hard, No. 112, September 1996.
- ↑ Hanno Kress: Aspirin and Hefeweizen , in Rock Hard, No. 105, February 1996.
- ↑ www.allmusic.com: Alice in Chains review by Steve Huey
- ↑ www.rockhard.de: Alice in Chains review by Michael Rensen
- ↑ Charts DE Charts UK Charts US