Alice In Chains
Facelift
The Band: Layne Staley- Vocals
Jerry Cantrell- Guitar, backing vocals
Mike Starr- Bass
Sean Kinney- Bass
A debut album is an extremely delicate thing. At the risk of sounding cliché, it can make or break a bands career. A band’s debut album follows them throughout the rest of their career and if they have a bad debut regardless of whether, or not they improve afterwards some people will neglect them based on the debut. Just to through an example of this out there take a look at “Atreyu”. They had a terrible debut album in many peoples opinions (especially on sputnik), but in their latest work they have shown some improvement in their musicianship and in the vocal department, as well. Yet this album seems to receive little recognition for that, perhaps due to their previous terrible album? Now that I’ve got that pointless example out of the way, let’s get a little more on topic.
Facelift is
Alice In Chains debut album and unlike Atreyu’s debut, this is an extremely solid debut album. As I’ve expressed in some of my other reviews, I’ve never really been a fan of
Layne Staley’s vocals, but I can actually say that I enjoyed them (to an extent) on this particular album. I’m not entirely sure why. I think there was a little bit less of that trademark whining thing that Staley tends to do, or sometimes he just makes random noises overtop of the instrumentals. That annoys me a little. This album seemed to be somewhat lacking it, which was nice. His actual singing (like during verses and choruses, you know) had seemed to improve, as well. Well, I suppose I can’t technically say that they improved because this was their first album. I guess you could say that Staley’s vocals have declined quality overtime, in my opinion at least. Aside from the slightly above average vocals this album also contained some superb instrumentals. The rhythm guitar was very well written and had that classic grunge-esque feel to it. You know, sort of dark and distorted. Pretty much in between rock and metal. There were also a few solos, which were of adequate quality. The bass lines were extremely powerful and had great tone. This helped to add to the albums sort of gloomy atmosphere. To be quite honest the drums didn’t contribute a whole lot to the albums atmosphere, but they I can’t think of too many bands where the drums do, so meh. The majority of the drum lines were pretty good and in good timing. What do you get when you put all of those things together? A truly wonderful album, that’s what you get. I’d actually say this is their second best album, shortly trailing behind dirt.
Like most
Alice In Chains albums this one had a pretty depressing overall feel to it. How so? Well, let just start by feeding you some of the song names.
We Die Young,
Sea Of Sorrow,
Bleed The Freak. Is that enough information you? No, you say? Well, then allow me to further elaborate. Layne’s dark, angst vocals definitely played their role. His voice on this album (like most others) is sort of flat and as I mentioned are pretty angst, as well. But it’s a certain type of angst. It’s not James Hetfield singing “Battery” angst. It’s more of a Zack De La Rocha angst. Yes, I am aware that Zack’s vocals aren’t depressing. He doesn’t really sound anything like Zack, that’s just the closest example I can think of at the moment. Anyways, it is a difficult thing to describe. Sort of a soft angst. That’s kind of an oxymoron (I believe that’s the correct grammatical term), I know. It’s this ‘soft angst’ that makes the album truly depressing because if Layne was more fiery then the album would be more of a head banger and when head banging it’s hard to be depressed. The instrumentals also played their role in this albums murky feel. Well, they did in about fifty percent of the tracks. In some tracks the instrumentals actually boosted the mood because of their choppy, distorted, fast pace. So, there actually were a few tracks that were good to head bang to. Although, not that great because of the vocals. But the instrumentals also added to some tracks grim atmosphere due to their softer nature. The melodic, flowing notes seemed to wrap themselves around Layne’s vocals creating one big ball of, for lack of a better word sadness. Not too mention the tone on the guitars was different than in the heavier tracks. Not light enough to be called clean tone, though. Just extremely light distortion. Now, based on all that you’ve probably guessed that this isn’t an album you’d listen to daily, unless you’re a really, really sad person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this album is any less spectacular because of its atmosphere. It’s just difficult to listen to it all the way through without it bringing down your mood. Although, if you listen to a track here and there and throw in some pop-punk in between you’ll be just peachy.
As I previously touched on the guitar work for this album has quite the contrast to it. There are some soft songs and some heavier ones, as well. Regardless of the guitar tones gender in whatever track, it was well written. All the rhythm guitar work was pretty astounding. Whether or not it was heavy drop D and power chorded or a combination of picked chords and regular chords. There were also some solos scattered about the album. Most of them were kind of short, but I like all other guitar work they were well executed. They were usually not overly complex, or overly simple and lots of FX were used. I also enjoyed the tone on
Cantrell’s amp. The distortion on the heavier tracks was perfect. He used just the right amount of gain. He also did well with the lighter tracks as he kept his tone soft, but not so soft that it sounded weak. Some Mr. Cantrell’s best guitar work definitely came from this album.
Mike Starr has got to be my favourite grunge bassist. His bass work on this album, while hard to hear for most of the album was magnificent. Due to the fact that not too many of Alice In Chains’ songs are composed of basic power chords (though some are) it isn’t an easy thing to do to just play the guitars root notes. Because of this Mike is forced to veer off into uncharted territory and write more complex bass lines. Not to say that he never just plays root notes. He did in a couple tracks, but for the most part they were more complex than that. I just wish they were a tad louder. Not to say they’re really that difficult to hear, but you have to try to hear them. They don’t really stand out too much at all. Oh well, the lack of bass took nothing away from the album.
Pros: Good instrumentals
Better vocals than on other albums
Cons: Some lack of bass
Overall Rating: 4/5
