I saw them the next year at Lollapalooza, when Dirt came out and it was two different bands. I Know Something (About You) is a cool tune! Great album, with only great things to come, along with the downside of fame (drugs, etc).įun fact, I saw them open for Van Halen when Facelift came out and they were face-melting. Songs like Bleed the Freak and It Ain’t Like That keep the album chugging along. These guys came out swinging with the 1,2,3 punch of We Die Young, Man In the Box, and Sea of Sorrow. Dirt really took Alice to new heights and made them huge.įacelift is awesome and fell in the middle of grunge and metal, with leaning more towards the metal side. Boston’s first album was outstanding but their follow up couldn’t come near the first album. Jacob Tannehill: One of the few debut albums that were outstanding. It's a dark, depressing album but merely a precursor to the darkness that would later emerge. Moody tracks like Sea Of Sorrow, Bleed The Freak, Love Hate Love, and the great, if overplayed, Man In The Box etch themselves in the brain while, even after multiple spins, the back-half tracks remain somewhat forgettable to me. Dirt holds my favourite AIC song ( Would), and Jar Of Flies is my favourite album ( Rotten Apple is immaculate), but Facelift is a solid release and very impressive for a debut, but like the Boston debut from last week, I feel like the front half of the album overshadows the back. Randy Banner: I've long said that Alice In Chains is the soundtrack of my depression, and I mean that in the best possible way. I still listen to this album straight through to this day. It was real, it was raw, and it was a punch in the gut. Layne's voice was so powerful on that song, you couldn't help but feel his pain. Love Hate Love is the standout track to me. I loved the harmonies Layne and Jerry put down together, which would just get stronger on subsequent releases. I heard this album and still remember thinking, "finally!" It was so dark, and so personal, and just so raw and honest. After the hair bands started becoming caricatures of themselves ( Same Old Situation by Motley Crue just sounded like Motley Crue trying to sound like Poison trying to sound like Motley Crue), it was time for something different.
Mark Ellis: I'll never forget getting this album. I like the next two albums a lot more, but this was a fine beginning. For some reason they decided to go for a slower grind, and I'm not entirely into it when comparing the two. And not just the tempo, but Layne's vocals too. Especially the demo version of We Die Young, found on the Nothing Safe compilation, is way more aggressive than the final version. I'm not a fan of how they chose to slow down the tempos for the album after doing some pretty energetic demos beforehand. We Die Young, Man in the Box and Bleed the Freak mostly, and some others are very good too. Pekka Turunen: It's a good, solid debut, but only a few of the songs are real killer tunes. Makes you wonder if things had been different what they would be producing now! As in my humble opinion all the AIC albums are. Tony Holiday: Absolutely phenomenal album. "Neither hedonistic nor especially technically accomplished, Alice in Chains' songs were mostly slow, oppressive dirges with a sense of melody that was undeniable, yet which crept along over the murky sludge of the band's instrumental attack in a way that hardly fit accepted notions of what made hard rock catchy and accessible." ( AllMusic (opens in new tab)) Both sides brought heavier musicianship than others, both sides had aggressive signing, and both sides possess such a dark energy that has influenced so many other bands we hear today." ( Sputnik Music (opens in new tab)) "Facelift is a record that proves that grunge and metal, like many opposing sides in history, where not so wholly different from each other, and I mean that in a positive way. It Ain’t Like That and Sunshine are still marginally remembered today, but the album peaks with Love, Hate, Love and slowly loses the identity if built after that." ( Dead End Follies (opens in new tab)) The second half of Facelift is much less memorable. "Facelift has some of the most iconic Alice in Chains songs, but there’s pretty much all in the first half of it.
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