Album Review: Dirt – Alice In Chains

Dirt was Alice In Chain’s second album. It came out after their huge hit Man In The Box which was the lead single of their first album Facelift. Instead of becoming “that band that did Man In the Box”, they created Dirt, a tormented, uneasy whirlwind of emotion and pain.

• Favourite part (why?): Them Bones, the first track on the album. It throws you straight into the deep end of the album with a 7/8 time signature. “Off-time stuff is just more exciting. It takes people by surprise when you shift gears like that before they even know what the hell hit ‘em… a lot of Alice stuff is written that way. ‘Them Bones’ is a great off-time song,” Cantrell told Guitar World (Jeff Cornell, 2017). It’s also really interesting that one of the most memorable moments of the album, the immediate shout at the start of Them Bones that adds an even more unsettling ambience to the track, was completely improvised. Staley came up with it on the spot, and subsequently implemented one of the most interesting details of the album. https://youtu.be/zTuD8k3JvxQ

  

• Least favourite (why?): whilst the untitled track feels somewhat unnecessary in the album’s catalog, it features the demonic guest vocals of Tom Araya, so I can excuse it. I personally have the unpopular opinion that the album’s lead single and most commercially successful track, Would?, is the weakest track on the album. Despite its deeply stirring lyrics and the haunting final line on the album “If I would, could you?” remaining in the memories of millions forever, the overall direction of the song feels somewhat predictable and held back compared to the other tormented and twisted songs on the album. It feels a little bit bleak, and yet still it’s an amazing track. https://youtu.be/Nco_kh8xJDs

  

• Comparison to other music by the same artist: Dirt came out after Facelift which featured two of the band’s most successful songs (Man In The Box and Bleed The Freak) and is yet still hailed as the band’s best album. Alice In Chains refined their sound much further than that on their debut album, ditching the radio-friendly hard rock sound to take on a much more distinguishable and distinct alternative metal persona and took much more creative risks that ultimately payed off, but keeping their noticeably self-loathing, unsettling lyrics (Man In The Box‘s opening verse has the lyrics “I’m the man in the box//Buried in my shit//Won’t you come and save me?” and Bleed The Freak‘s chorus features the disturbing line “I’d like to see //How you all would bleed for me”). It was the band’s breakthrough album. The band can thank the airplay that their hit single Man In the Box received for the following popularity and success, leading to Dirt peaking at no. 6 on the Billboard album chart and going on to sell over five million copies worldwide. Alice In Chains as a band somewhat lost their steam following the release of Dirt despite its major success. Following Dirt, the albums Jar Of Flies and their self titled album which, though both have a handful of amazing songs and underrated gems, could never live up to the legacy of Dirt. Following the sudden death of Layne Staley after he overdosed on heroin, AIC decided to put their career on hold for a few years before returning with the albums Black Gives Way To The Blue, a few years later, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, and most recently Rainier Fog, with new singer William DuVall. It’s a position that DuVall took up incredibly bravely and to be fair to him very well, but he marked a new era for Alice In Chains and the albums in this new era are distant to the band’s roots. Listen to a live performance of Bleed The Freak here: https://youtu.be/-xQQzi0IdLY

  

• General background: Dirt was recorded and released in 1992 during the golden era of grunge. Compared to Nirvana’s Nevermind, Soundgarden’s Superunknown, and Pearl Jam’s Ten as the most dark, haunting, and harrowing of the ‘Big Four Of Grunge’. It was produced by Dave Jerden (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Frank Zappa), who worked previously on AIC’s previous album Facelift, featuring hard rock classics such as Man In The Box and Bleed The Freak. However, its worth noting that the albums most commercially successful song Would? was produced by Rick Parashar (Temple Of The Dog, Blind Melon, Pearl Jam). While recording, lead singer Layne Staley was struggling with heroin addiction (he ultimately overdosed in 2002 which killed him) and Sean Kinney and Mike Starr were struggling with alcohol addiction. The drug influences are very prominent on the album, particularly with songs like Junkhead and Godsmack in the lyrics.

  

• Others’ opinions: Dirt has gone down as one of the greatest grunge/alternative metal albums of all time and undoubtedly as Alice In Chain’s best album to date. It got voted the third best grunge album of all time by Rolling Stones readers (behind Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten): Many compared Staley’s vocals to Eddie Vedder’s singing style. “We all play rock music, so there is some similarity,” says guitarist Jerry Cantrell (Rolling Stone, 1992). “But the bands are different. Ours is a little more brooding and introspective. Pearl Jam is a soul that’s full of life and invigorating, and Nirvana is kind of beautifully dysfunctional . . . These are just words I’m pulling off the top of my head. Even if I can’t put my finger on it, there’s an individual identity to the bands.”” A lot of reviews for Dirt hail it very highly:

  

• What you/they agree/disagree on: for the most part, I agree with the critics. I’m a long time fan of AIC and Dirt has always stood out miles in front of the band’s other work. Dirt, personally, is my second favourite album ever (behind Muse’s Origin Of Symmetry). Dirt has made me realise that music doesn’t have to be fast and angry to be considered scary – Dirt is as haunting as it is for its distinct vocal harmonies, jumps from tempos and keys and timings, ability to show its aggression through emotion, not unrelenting heavy metal beats and growls.
• Composing techniques used (tempo, structure, key/tonality, rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics, chords/progressions, riffs, lyrics, instrumentation etc.); AIC are known for their distinct vocal harmonies, present in almost every single song; time changes and key changes in Sickman and Hate To Feel; off-time songs such as Them Bones (7/8) and Dam That River (6/8); Jerry Cantrell is sometimes considered one of the most underrated guitarists – he created amazing riffs on Dirt like Dam That River, Dirt, and Rain When I Die; Alice In Chains are the masters of proving that fast doesn’t equal heavy, a lot of the songs are a slow pace which instead of chilling the sound out, enhances the doom-influenced atmosphere of the album.

I discovered Dirt in the midst of my obsession with thrash metal, when I wouldn’t listen to anything that didn’t have double bass pedals all over the place, wailing solos, and unrelenting galloping riffs. Dirt changed the way that I viewed the metal genre and what it really means to express dark emotions through music. It opened me up to some of my favourite bands today and made me appreciate the existing “less heavy” bands I liked at the time even more. It expertly expressed love, apathy, anger, and hopelessness in one album, and it blew my mind. More importantly, it made me realise that things that sound frankly really, really weird can because of it sound really, really cool. Following templates is safe, but trying risky and abnormal approaches to songwriting will make your music distinct and like nothing else. I’m trying to adapt this attitude to my own songwriting, though I’m finding it difficult. I want to take influences from Dirt, along with Muse’s 2001 album Origin Of Symmetry, Björk’s 1997 album Homogenic, and System Of A Down’s 2001 album Toxicity.

References:

• Jeff Cornell, (2017) Mr. [Online] Available from: http://loudwire.com/alice-in-chains-dirt-anniversary/ [accessed 11 October 2018]
• Rolling Stone. (1992) Alice in Chains: Through the Looking Glass. [Online] Available from: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/alice-in-chains-through-the-looking-glass-244000/ [accessed 1 November 2018]