The way journey of Alice in Chains
study or just look away and thought forms, both in terms of temporal than geographic, it may be difficult due to lack of appropriate sources, often mediated by biased interpretations, or be very easy for the privilege of a marginal involvement. For those who lived through the late eighties and early nineties of , in the prime of his youth, both displayed above perspective, however, very far from the truth.
Even then - ran in 1991 - who chewed a little music, had the impression that that abuse and extremely localistic term (synonym of the city of Seattle ), had been crafted to enrich and record media. Yes, because all of us, taken the first steps in the hard-rock and metal, almost naively wondered what ever they had in common people like Nirvana, Soundgarden or Pearl Jam. What no one could deny it was a sort of abandonment of a certain type of clean sound that for some years acted as the master, in favor of a more marked rough and blood "dirty" sound that recalls some seventies. Here's how we saw the grunge, as a mere throwback to a genre that was going through a period of crisis, as confirmed by the growing popularity and the decline of the reticence of innovative ideas.
There was nothing new, genuine, elitist. There was just another bunch of business-man who had sniffed the deal, the same flannel shirts were a simple need for people living in cold and wooded countryside of Washington state, not a fad. It is perhaps also because of the frequent rains that children prefer to close in the bar or in a basement exhaust amplifiers and distortion rather than going out and playing football. It is likely that even now, almost four decades away, is popular with young people the same practice. Too bad that no record more interest.
There were groups, then, that with the grunge phenomenon had even less to do, since their production seemed distant rage of punk almost forgotten Mudhoney, considered by most critics, the first exponents of the genre.
Rather, the point of contact, lived in a depressed and pessimistic tone of the poetry that accompanied a music that, on balance, had nothing to rebel as a nihilist manifesto of decadence and destruction.
Alice in Chains, is the epithet of a malaise declared to the world. For a movie fan can remember the title of a B-movie belonging to the genre "women in prison" calved from the cauldron dell'explotion seventies (actually the beginnings of the band refer to the very glam rock a bit 'sexist style Gun'N'Roses and Motley Crue), in fact, the Alice in question is a poor, tortured creature fight stubbornly (and unnecessarily) against heavy chains of life, whose only way out is to be imprisoned by chains even heavier.
extended time, arpeggios and vocals funeral claims yet fierce, are the hallmarks of a part of the production of Alice in Chains, inexorably influenced by the specter of addiction of singer Layne Staley. The lyrics are about drugs, death, loneliness, not resulting never as free hymn to self-destruction, but rather as a dramatic and unheard cry for help.
When released Facelift Alice, their first album, Nevermind had to wait another year before seeing the light and shake the world record. It is 1990, this time moving up the Nirvana coordinates very close to punk, Soundgarden ape Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, while Pearl Jam does not exist yet. Here is a group born in the famous Music Bank the U.S. city, start by creating a form in some ways tied to the metal mainstream, but exasperation at its most claustrophobic, often slowing the beat, tone and tighten up cupissimi, almost Gothic tradition that go back to dark.
The framers of this very particular sound made of dark metal guitars almost always tuned in Dropped D (the sixth string is tuned in D instead of E, allowing greater extension to the lower notes, in addition to a sound more full "in the key of D), combined with dark melodies and alienation generated by overdubbing multiple vocal lines parallel, we call Jerry Cantrell, Layne Staley and talented guitarist, a brilliant vocalist. Both great composers, defined in a short time their distinctive trademark with drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr, replaced in 1993 by Mike Inez. The album
debut (Facelift, 1990), preceded outcoming "We Die Young," lays the foundation to future production, it is still immature at times a hard stand where already some memorable songs. First of all the aforementioned powerful and "We Die Young", then the syncopated and epic "Man in the Box" and the long and agonizing "Love, Hate, Love", in which we encounter in a slow time, dominated by psychotic sounds that tell a story of forlorn, loneliness and anger. The only sound is sketchy, but already evident: the Cantrell-bodied guitar, and always on top, it goes to the voice of Staley, in the prime of his youth vehemence, is able to draw powerful vocals and hallucinatory, although not yet fully run-in terms of expressiveness. The next ep (Wis, 1992), contains four tracks (plus one hidden track neurotic), who surprised critics and audiences for the almost complete absence of electrical arrangements, a mini album peppered with acoustic guitars, piano, reading drum rolls and voice melodic elements that deviate from the group simplistic definition of metal.
The Alice knows a growing success, of course, accompanied by pressures of all kinds. Starting the drug problem, exacerbated in the case of Layne, the figure of an alcoholic father and toxic that after abandoned the family for several years, returns to take advantage of the popularity and the money of the child. At this point, most patrons of the ghetto misfit of alternative nation, the heirs as to the nihilism and psychosis just dead Jane's Addiction, Alice in Chains churn out their masterpiece (Dirt, 1992). It is the perfect album and at the same time manifest in liquefaction of the decay of the soul and body. There is no truce in Dirt, no hope of salvation, even for a moment to breathe and from the first furrow was overwhelmed by a granite wall of guitars and a scream of agonizing pain that throws into an abyss of decadence and unheard psychological and sound.
Each song is a hymn to the most expressive of the metal, by the sound of Metallica, Soundgarden obscurantism of his contemporaries. Each text speaks of pain and despair, drugs and loneliness. These are the words (easier said knowing the ending of the story) of a vulnerable man and his unbridled difficulties from an addiction stronger and more intrusive than anything else: it is the beginning of the voyage without return.
The following year, reveals yet another surprise: the quartet, fresh from a new bass player, churning out another semi-acoustic Ep (Jar of Flies, 1994), but this time the polar opposite of the bare simplicity of Sap. It is a masterpiece, even if distant the dimension of sound more congenial to the group. The sound is filled with arrangements that border on the baroque , making for the first time to talk about "grunge progressive", open to reforms of various harmonics. Stand out in particular the sluggish pace dream dell'opener "Rotten Apple", the poetic introspection of "Nutshell", the fabled "I stay away."
problems of drug addiction vocalist maudit, are becoming more serious and moving the first rumors of dissolution. In fact, it is Staley who broke the silence, which lasted more than a year, publishing the interesting "Above", digression acid blues and psychedelic, with McCready of Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees Martin and Lanengan, under the name of Mad Season .
few months later comes a little 'surprise what will be the last studio work of the quartet (Alice in Chains, 1995). The album, currently untitled, also known as "Tripoid" because of the sad three-legged dog depicted on the cover, marking the total abandonment of any reference to blues, he loses in power than its predecessor Dirt, gaining in a dark mood and attitude otherworldly . It is a perfect example of post-rock structure, someone wrote that the play is an experience similar to the contemplation detached your body. From the musical point of view, there is perhaps a slight step back, the same interpretation of the singer is not up to the past (the obvious fatigue is partly bypassed by the usual sea of \u200b\u200boverdubs that, though always suggestive, partially hidden difficult to withstand the most demanding melodic lines), yet here, Cantrell and Staley reach a surprising musical maturity, where the considerable depth of the lyrics, find the right balance with the leaden performance of funeral and instrumental scores.
From this moment on, there is only time for a handful of concerts as a shoulder of Kiss, to record of an acoustic show for MTV, and the usual inflation and publication of collections of various kinds (apart from the interesting box set Music Bank, where you can listen to demos and unreleased tracks).
The poor health of Staley, associated with a depression worsened after the death in 1996 the only girl he had loved, it will inevitably lead in the bottom of the chasm, art, establishing a premature end to anticipate a few years his death. The artist was found dead on April 19, 2002 , twenty days after the date of death. Vegeta for a long time in solitude on an exit for sad and silent, far from clamor of the most famous and idolized icon of Seattle. The rock has had many children by their own broken dreams ... one more will not change some history. Who has had the good fortune to meet Layne, however, can say that did not even have a small part of the hypertrophic ego rock star, "one person too vulnerable, exposed nerve ipervibrante sorrows of the world that could not withstand the wave ' shock. "
No director recounts the last days Layne, no lucrerà widow on her picture of damage. Probably few will remember in the coming decades of the merits of this great band. Is perhaps a bit thin and the 'pathetic consolation to know that Alice has finally broken his chains and flew away.
David Battaglia
