quickcrit - music reviews

More like "Alice In Chains," really. One of my favorite 90's alt rock bands is back with a new lead singer who sounds like a watered down Layne Staley (may he rest). Or worse yet... a cheap imitation vocalist because I've heard AIC cover bands (e.g., Dirt) who sound muuuuch better. Their anachronistic single, "Check My Brain" (view it here), is so awful and wrong. It isn't even good enough to be a b-side back in the Jar Of Flies days. All of this just makes me sad. Why the 14-year hiatus? Why a new album? Why try to recapture that which will never come back? I know you guys lost your irreplaceable frontman to a drug overdose, but why come back with a lesser AIC? Isn't it better to burn out at your brightest, than fade away... or worse, come back at half speed? Why didn't they just change their name/start a new band altogether? Why did they even stop recording in the first place? So many unanswered questions! Jerry Cantrell was pretty much the de facto second lead singer during some of their most memorable showcases of vocal harmony (Umm, does anyone else remember the genius that is/was "No Excuses," "Heaven Beside You," and "Down In A Hole"?), why didn't he just step up then and take over? It's not like he didn't have the chops to put out tracks all by his lonesome post-Layne, considering he basically rocked the shit out of one of my all-time favorite Chains songs ever, "Got Me Wrong." Or was he just temporarily distracted with his foray into film? Too bad his cameo career didn't take off.



Point to ponder:
Oh, and for all the Seattle music fans out there... am I the only one in the world who maintains that Alice In Chains: Unplugged blew Nirvana's acoustic set out of the water? And they didn't even have to throw in a Bowie or Meat Puppets cover to achieve that.