Alice in Chains - Facelift
How do you confront your worst problems, your worst nightmares? Do you fight them, with a small hope of one day defeating them? Do you run, hide in the darkest corner that you can find and hope they won’t find you? Or do you simply give up, accept your fate and let it all go?
If the suffering of Jesus on the cross would have a soundtrack, Alice in Chains – Facelift would be the one. It’s so full of torment, torture, pain, schizophrenia, paranoia, self-destruction, twisted, melancholy, depression, jealousy, despair, hatred, misery, hostility and every other negativity you can think of. It’s so depressive that the brightest day turns into the darkest nightmare. This is the record I hide under the bed when night comes, hoping it won’t find its way out.
Layne Staley, to none of yours’ surprise, led a difficult life, a life of pain which came to an end in 2002. The proof of his dark, maniac depressed, twisted view of life is all in here. Facelift gives a sharp, hopeless scary peek into the life of a helpless, hopeless addict. Let’s face it; musicians have in all times used “recreational” drugs when making music. Hendrix did it, creating some of the best songs the world has ever witnessed. Tons of bands in the 70s did it, marking the arguably most influenced and best music in modern age. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ancient classical minds such as Mozart and other famous artists did as well, in one form or another. Actually, most of us has some kind of sickness, to be honest. Be it gambling, alcohol, smoking, eating, superficial looks… or heroin. Layne Staley was a drug addict. Listening to songs like these make you almost feel that Staley's doom was already destined, and that he knew it in his heart way back then - and accepted it. Instead of hiding it, he tried to fight it openly. He was an addict even so much that he wore gloves during live shows to conceal all wounds the needle did; his arms weren’t capable of any more. Does this make him a bad person? Maybe. Does this make him an idiot? Most certainly. Does this make me love him less? Absolutely not.
Let’s look at the cover: a warped, disfigured face of a man; who ironically resembles a clown. This lets us immediately know that this isn’t a pretty album. No cute illusions, no safe home, no invitation for a cup of tea. Facelift shows us the unpolished, raw and honest not-so-pretty side of how life can be sometimes. If you somehow thought this was a party record by looking at the many colors of this man’s hair, think again. Alice in Chains – Facelift is nothing like a party record. This is for brooding and melancholy moments.
Unless you’re amused by death, suicide, heroin addiction and hell, that is. If you’ve listened to Alice in Chains’ second album, Dirt, you know what I’m talking about. That album has a feeling to it that the world is about to end; it has apocalypse written all over it. In Facelift, the world is already dead.
In 1982, another famous band named “The Cure” released a very famous and acclaimed album called “Pornography”. This album is known as a very dark, depressive and moody album. The answer is yes, it is. Enter Facelift. 8 years later, another master of darkness arose from the depths of hell; Layne Staley. Layne, along with his other friends Jerry Cantrell, Michael Starr and Sean Kinney made up a band that was ultimately to become Alice in Chains (but from the start there were other names, such as Diamond Lie and just alice n’ chains). The details of how they got started is as always hazy with old bands such as this, but it’s said that they were formed somewhere in the mid 80s. Playing a few gigs, releasing a few singles and warming up as an artist, then Alice in Chains recorded and released their first album Facelift in August, 18th, 1990.
Two things that inevitably always come up when talking about Alice in Chains are grunge and which one is their best album. You can’t talk 5 minutes about AiC before someone names the word grunge. Personally, I’d rather focus on their music and great efforts than spend time discussing whether Aic was grunge or not, that’s just useless and I won’t even talk about it. I won’t discuss whether Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and other similar bands were better or worse than AiC either, because I know the answer already. Alice in Chains wrote about deep subjects of life; (yeah right drugs! :P) but seriously, these guys were smart… smart but unhappy. They wrote about war, love, hate, and many topics in life.There’s no need to discuss any further, seek the answers for yourself it’s pretty easy to figure out. Music is what I care about, nothing else. Let’s leave it at that Facelift (and AiC in general) was far more “metal” than any of the other albums. How about the other question; Exactly what makes Alice in Chains such a good band, why is it loved by so many? Is Facelift the best album of Alice in Chains? A much more interesting topic.
There are many reasons why AiC is such a great band, and very few why it would be bad ;). Personally, I love the many “faces” and sides of what the band is. Their songs are anything you want; soft, dark, happy, heavy, strange, weird, normal and everything else you can imagine. The next reason is because they play such emotionally strong music, it’s very easy to listen and imagine stuff while hearing their songs. Listening to “Frogs” or “Brush away” I can truly see a vision of Layne (or any addict) crawl back into their apartment, isolating himself, all in his loneliness, reaching for the heroin shot, see the look in his eyes…the sound is so creepy! It’s like you’re really there, standing and looking at him. The guitars, whether it’s riffs or solos are always very well structured, perfect interplay, the vocals is very powerful and emotional and the group is perfectly synchronized.
The troubled frontman, Layne Staley has one of the very best vocals any singer out there, when you listen to these songs, you can really hear the pain in Layne's voice. His tortured screams and haunting chants are what sets this band apart from anything else I have ever heard. Not only being emotional, if you listen carefully (preferably in a headset) Layne's voice had the special "pronounciation" of every word to make it even stronger... when listening to "less experienced" vocalists one can usually hear them not articulating every word so clearly or letting go too fast/easily when singing them. Not Staley. He carries every note to the very end in every song, always pronouncing every consonant, for example in "confusion" he sings "you reaaaaaaaaaaaaCHHHHHHHHHHH, I ruNNNNNNNNNNNN you faaaaaaLLLLLLLLLL on skinned knees you craWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLL". I hope you get my point, a regular singer wouldn't have noticed or put extra pressure on the highlighted alphabets i pointed out. You might not think this matters but when you actually hear it, it really makes sense.
Cantrell is a superb guitar player, Kinney knows how to drum to create a great mood, and Mike plays the bass with elegancy. Even the lyrics are great. It's not just how good the songs are, t's also the way AiC delivers them. A lot of bands (you know who they are) have tried to copy or get inspiration of AiC, but there is not band that can truly copy this piece of art. Interesting as well is that the music itself is not too complicated for many to get into, the regular rock songs like “Them Bones” and “Would?” are easily to get into, not complex at all so it can attract any type of listener, but if you’re looking for deeper material AiC has got that too. It’s really deep music… it’s so dirty it’s admirable. I guess this is why the band ultimately became as famous as it is, because people no matter life status, intelligence level or culture could relate to it.
To answer which album is the best, the best available description is that each and every AiC album has its own unique touch, advantages and lovely music. Whereas Facelift (1990) was more calm, experimental, dark, dready and “primitive”, Dirt (1992) had a more straight forward, violent, hostile, defined attitude and knew what it wanted (by the way this record should be listened to at maximum level til your ears can’t take it, it gets so strong then. SLAM DAM THAT RIVER in your face! Or you can go Rooster and feel immortal). Jar of Flies (1994) was a less chaotic, relaxed, soft and simple and album, and the self titled album (Alice in Chains, 1995) was more hazy, paranoid, , associable, intoxicated album, and Unplugged a friendly, sophisticated one. They’re all great and contribute into something that is exactly Alice in Chains. I love them all dearly and wouldn’t like to be without either of them. So I would recommend you to get all of them, if you can. Only picking up “Facelift” or “Dirt” wouldn’t make AiC justice, as that’s just one side of the band. That way you’d only see their angry side, not their soft, friendly even warm and welcoming side of Jar of Flies and Unplugged. It’s even important to do so, because only listening to the dark albums would get a wrong picture of the band. To understand “Facelift”, you would need to know the other albums as well. Layne wasn’t just the crazy madman a lot of people take him for; songs like “no excuses”, “got me wrong”, “don’t follow” and “over now” shows he had a very light and bright side as well; the human Staley. This is very important to remember. Let’s hope he finally found peace. Then there are also many singles and EP’s to look for, all beautiful and harmonic, to understand the band, you have to have all of the records. The best way to see what I like would be to ask me or check for my ratings or top100 list of songs. A band with truly many talents, indeed.
But hey, let’s stay on track here. Even as I love every part of Alice in Chains, this review is about Facelift, a true masterpiece. As mentioned, this is a depressive album, there’s no question about this. These songs were written by someone who was at absolute rock bottom. Even today, no other record can match this one in terms of pessimism. And this is a 16 year old record we’re talking about folks! It’s amazing how well it’s stood the test of time! I remember when I got into Alice in Chains, It was in early 2001 so I’ve only listened to them for 5 years, but oh how I have listened… they sucked me in, kept me listening and never turned it off until I had my 3-4 hour (drug?) dose everyday. I can only imagine how totally incredible it must have been to be with them at the same time they released their records, yet see them live!
Is depressive music something good? Could it actually help people, to give them faith and hope to try and get out of troublesome situations, courage and belief in a better world, for a better time? Or is it the total opposite; something that drags the listener even further down, shuts off every way out and denies every helping hand and just something useless? Or is depressive music something we shouldn’t take so seriously, just listen to it and enjoy the music it gives us? Some of you are probably thinking the these fools listening to depressive music are angry, egostic kids that want to feel sorry for themselves. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. There are tons of opinions on this, with various statements and arguments, for and against. This is all individually, but I assure you there’s no one who’s really right or wrong in this question, and either way Alice in Chains’ music is beautiful. However, I would think REALLY carefully before saying something negative about depressive music to someone, for many reasons. Personally I’m just not only into depressive music, that would be a big misunderstanding… I like anything with emotion, whether it’s happy, sad, strange or glamorous music. I’m always building up my own thoughts and imagines of a band or album, this way I can get exactly what I want. This is why music is better than for instance movies; in a movie someone else is behind the wheels, creating and fixing the world that I am supposed to look at. In music, I am that one creating that world. Compare it to a book, the reader creates what it’s ultimately to become. In that sense, music and books are quite similar.
I’m sure this album and Alice in Chains does not appeal to everybody. People without a taste for negative music should maybe look elsewhere; maybe check out Jar of Flies and Unplugged, that’s some good more happy stuff. But it cannot; and should not be denied, darkness and depression is a big part of Alice in Chains. The music is so heavy; dwelling in the dark, murky areas of human emotions. Maybe it seems weird that when listening to AiC, given its downbeat, depressing and difficult nature but strangely you feel drawn to and compelled to listen to it; its that powerful. I suggest playing it loud, blasting it out so loud your neighbours get annoyed, this way the music reaches its full effect and potential. This album is out of control, it's straight from hell. It could take a couple of listens for it to grow, but it’s not very difficult to get into once you really concentrate. Or maybe it is, depends what level of openminded music you are at. You don’t have to be on rock bottom, super-depressed or having problems to listen to AiC. Layne even made a comment about it that whatever your world is like, if you can interpret our lyrics in your own way and it helps you, we have succeeded. I’ve read many comments about the band, one that goes “Alice in Chains is a sick band!!! I can’t understand how anyone can listen to this crap! The lead singer sounds like a mentally diseased and insane man!”
Yes, that’s exactly the beauty of it.
1: We die young
A good opener of the album, nothing too impressive or special, but it delivers the goods. I like the tension it builds up at the first few seconds, with the rolling drums and the raw guitars. I like how intense the edgy guitars sound, it immediately makes the listener aware of the fact that this album is metal, unpolished and that it means business. If you listen to this loud (the true way music should be listened to!) this gets much heavier, stronger and better, like a punch to the face, it’s almost like a street fight. A pretty cool theme, the sentence “we die young” or somebody dying young has always fascinated mankind. This song is mostly just about Alice in Chains being “streetpunks” and some gang fights, which is ever so tempting for youngsters. I mean who wouldn’t want to play with the cool kids? If you have good imagination, you can almost visualize the image of standing in a street, with guttered streets, rain pours down and you’re fighting someone with a lot of punks standing around cheering at you. “Take another hit and bury your brother. Down, down you’re rolling watch the blood float in the muddy sewer” is another cool sentence, its like you’ve just been hit by punch and blood spits out from your mouth. It’s a decent song.
2. Man in the box
Regarded as an old classic, with the very original distorted guitars, powerful vocals by Staley and a very nice guitar solo at the mid section, I still have to say that this one isn’t on top of their best quality. It’s a fine, simple song but they have even better. It can become a bit boring and repetitive at times, the guitar riff is the same all the time, and the lyrics is the same as well… Layne sings it well but just hearing “yeaahhhh….” And the moaning “aaaaooooooowww aaaaaah” for a long time kinda puts you off.
3. Sea of sorrow
This is where Facelift begins to pick up, it’s at this song that the darkness that’s soon to follow makes itself invited. It’s not all dark, but it’s starting to come. I love the intro. A melancholic piano, playing in the background, almost jazz-influenced, very calm and relaxed and laid back, a long guitar tune and the slow almost not hearable drums, and then a short guitar tune again and the song breaks down at the 20th second, with really powerful vocals by Layne, he sounds so dangerous “Mind of destructive taste I choose… to stroll among the waste, that was your heart lost in the dark”. He had such a talent to hold on to the words, if you listen carefully you can really hear that he’s pronouncing every letter on the words. The solo that comes in the middle of the song (03:48) is really nice, such a catchy rhythm and right when it’s done the song calms down for a few seconds, just like to take a breath and then Layne’s vocals comes thundering in again “You opened fire”!
4: Bleed the freak
Once again, the intro is sweet. It starts very calm, the guitars is in the background just jamming softly, then gets a little more apparent and lighter, almost like a chilly wind. The tunes they play here very much sounds just like what the song is about; revenge and you can almost taste of bittersweet retribution on the tip of your tongue listening to it. Listening to this, I can very much feel and imagine the feeling of being betrayed or disappointed at something. After 40 seconds, it breaks down to more rock, and it’s like the bitter feelings have turned into a bit of more rage, very strong and powerful, very angry but not out of control but more planned, focused anger, you can hear this in Layne’s very distinct voice that sounds very determined to do something. At the sentence “if you scorn my lover, satan got your thigh if you steal in hunger I will kick you when you try” his vocals is so emotional. At 02:03 Cantrell comes in with a touchy, nice fitting emotional guitar solo that ends abruptly, and right when it’s done the rhythm surprisingly calms down, to a very slow level much remnicient of the intro for the song. This is great because this part is melancholic, and hearing this part it’s like I can visualize the moment where the person (whoever it was) tried to fullfill his goal, trying his best but once again was thrown off and lost… feeling the bitter taste of defeat.
At 02:20, there’s a very interesting moment, you have to listen carefully to hear it. There’s a whispering voice in the background, mumbling something that’s difficult to hear but I hear the words “all this precious moment is falling” and I find it very fascinating. Picture maybe the most important moment in your life, and it just falls to pieces, crashed by something. The guitars are so worried, depicting a sad and disappointed moment. Then the song rises again with a powerful drumming and we’re back at the angry stage. This is a cool song, calm but yet so full of aim.
5: I can’t remember
The song starts very reserved, the intro of 40 seconds is very dreamy and almost has a feeling of that it’s worried about something, something but it doesn’t know exactly what… something that’s inevitably coming and it can’t stop it… something…. he can’t remember. Then Layne breaks it down, with a more relaxed but very depressed state, that his attitude is moody and something’s not right. A freaky tune of “what’s your name?” appears at the 54th second, followed by a deep “Iiiiiiii can’t remember”. “Bring me down you try feel the pain and keep it all in till you die without eyes you cannot cry” *who’s to blame*
Remember identity, the visions in my mind from screamin’ at me and mama, mama oooh.. my angry brains of infancy”
“Knocked down but I have enough hate to breathe” “You took everything but my will to be now the loss of your god won’t make me bleed”
“I am alive” has the perfect tone of Layne’s voice to end this, because now, my friends, enter:
6: Love, Hate, Love
The two most powerful emotions humans can ever feel are love and hate. If you’ve ever felt true love, you know what I mean… it brings you up high among the clouds, a deep emotion in your stomach, tickling through all of your body, making you warm and fuzzy. Take this feeling and mix it with the deepest hate that you could possibly create, and what do you get? Exactly. Love… Hate…Love. As two evil medieval wizards, Layne and Cantrell poured a dark, twisted, haunting, gloomy, claustrophobic, disastrous, sad liquid into a bottle, mixed it with the worst kind of poisons and most evil ingredients you can imagine and created Love, Hate, Love.
THIS, is the most depressive song any band has ever made. It punctures your mind. It’s the spiral down to the darkest hour in your worst nightmares.
There are two ways to listen to this song. The first is to try and deny any kind of feelings you have; just being dead-on serious, not openminded and not letting anything get to you, determined to rate it as a stupid, silly, idiot song. The other is to open your mind, close your eyes and let every feeling come naturally. Turn off the lights, preferably bring a glass of whiskey or something else to sip on and pump up the volume.
From the first second, the sound holds you tightly and forces you into its grip, there’s no escape, the background music engulfs you into the dark atmosphere. The dreamy, dreadful guitars creates a picture of a fantasy place, somewhere far away (but oh so close), to some kind of swamp where misty clouds fall over a small lake, buried deep in the very darkest forests and the sound is like one of a deadly, feared legendary bog, a place where people never dare to go. In the background, barely visible, is a small, microscopic tap at the cymbals, creating a frightening introductive atmosphere. The drums starting at the fourth second are so haunting, Layne’s voice comes in at 0: 21 “uuuuuuuuuuuuuh” and at the same time the drums become more apparent and steps out of the shadows, to become more visible and changes from mysterious to very sharp and concrete. At 0:38 the drums buries you deeper into the song with a slightly more intense drumming, and so it starts... the journey to nightmare kingdom.
Look around, tell me what you see. Tormented angels are standing at each side, with faces full of despair and eyes lost of hope, the melancholic guitars create haunting ghosts, flying restlessly near the dried trees, shadows casting their long black sillouette down on the ground .The rhythm guitars is like a ripping of your flesh, taking one small bite at the time, the bassline is a rock mashing your face, the drums is like a whip, tangling you constantly over and over… and Layne’s voice is the most tortured of them all.
The lyrics are so sick and so freaky; yet so normal and so passionate. They are very descriptive and tells very accurately the story of a relationship that has ended. “I tried to love you I thought I could I tried to own you I thought I would. I want to peel the skin from your face before the real you lays to waste.”
The song takes a higher level at 01:17 where the following sentence appears “You told me I’m the only one…. sweet little angel you should have run” . Layne sings this with such desperate emotion and perfect accuracy that it freaks me out... and his egoistic, possessive, demonic vocals at 01:52 fades out into a state of disappointment. The revenge and bitterness continues when he takes up the vocals again at 02:13, all the while the guitars keep thrashing you in the background.
And then, at 02:50, THE MOST POWERFUL MOMENT IN ALICE IN CHAINS’ HISTORY AND POSSIBLY IN the HISTORY OF MUSIC starts. For 2 full minutes and 30 seconds here, from 02:50 to 05:20 the most dramatic and INSANE moment takes place. This is something so incredible that it’s impossible to describe. It starts with Layne taking a high pitched voice, and SO ***ING POWERFUL “lost inside my sick head I live for you but I’m not alive” and continues with “I still love you but I still burn” and then an extremely haunting guitar solo takes place, slowly but steadily, very calm but focused and fades away and ends at 04:16… with a desperate tune and strikes down again at 04:24, and right after 2 seconds later, at the very important pinnacle and epic center of the song 04:26 the drums totally kills you with an incredibly strong smash and the guitar is like it’s crashing down like lightning with the hardest impact and at that moment Layne screamins desperately his lungs out YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYEAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Love, Hate, Love”, possessed by all his demons in a raging trance that won’t let him go, he keeps screaming, twisting the knife deeper into his heart, until all blood is spilt and he dies.
And right after, at 05:38, if you listen carefully at the percussions, preferably with a headset, you can actually hear the ghosts laughing at him, flying around above his corpse, pointing their fingers and smiling like devils, and then he makes one final stand, screaming one last time and the song ends with his last breath… with a small, haunting melancholic tune the last 12 seconds and fades away, just like if the ghosts were scared to touch him and flies away in respect.
This is ***ing dark. ( /end sarcasm joke :) )
Of course, worth to note, is that if you’ve especially had a love, hate, love relationship with someone (I guess pretty hard to imagine if you haven’t, but it’s actually not that far away for most) this song gets even stronger. Have there ever been a stronger lyrics line than “I live for you but I’m not alive, I still love you but I still burn”? The hate is so strong.I don’t know just what the hell Layne and Cantrell was up to when they wrote this, but they sure knew about the bitter taste of love and hate. It’s incredible how they could make this song so dark. Pick the most brutal, heavy and raw death metal song you can find, something with growling vocals and compare it to this, for example something by cannibal corpse. That death metal song doesn’t even come close. Love, Hate, Love is so heavy, psychotic and dark that it becomes heavy; it doesn’t even need the brutal riffs! It’s all about the mind. AiC doesn’t need any distracting image horror masks (i.e. slipknot) or tempting good looks (Britney spears and the other thousands of similar artists), they only need your mind, and then they’ll control you. This song is like one, long; crazy illusion. That’s the word that most accurately describes it. This is one of those rare songs that sends chills down your spine.
7. It ain’t like that
You thought it was over huh? You thought the demons left? “In “It ain’t like that”, the first 10 seconds is like you were dragged through the mud. You’ve been at the start of the nightmare, you *couldn’t remember* what was going to happen, then it happened with *lovehatelove* and now when it’s over you’re down, deep down into the ***, crawling on the floor, searching for something to hold on to but there’s only mud, more mud and dirt. This is a song about anguish, anxiety that it’s over, *it ain’t like that anymore*. All your hopes and dreams are shattered, you’re finished man, you’re dead.
A thrashing, suffering guitar sound tortures your soul throughout this song, with only a small fragment of hope at 0:25, a dream of a peaceful oasis that quickly fades away, far from your hands. Layne quickly agrees: “There I was, laid out on a table screamin’ sweat and bare feet to the floor. Things that cut, and burn so often”. The song continues in a very cruel way, like if the person saw a small opportunity to change around his life, to try and make it good but it fails miserably “see the cycle I’ve waited for, it ain’t like that anymore”. A beautiful harmonic guitar solo appears at 02:50, ending with a raw “YEAH!” by Layne.
Remember your dreams of a beautiful sky, green fields and happy moments? It ain’t like that anymore.
8: Sunshine
The vocals on this song saves it from being bad. Layne sings, once again, emotionally and fits perfectly to the bluesy sound. Unfortunately, that doesn’t save the song from being pretty boring. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a poor song it’s just that the structure of it is far too simpleminded and repetitive.
9: Put you down
A rocky, bluesy song with a fun rhythm guitar and cool vocals. After some very moody tunes on an album like this, this kind of stuff is needed. It changes the pace around at the album, and the guitar riff is pretty cool. Layne kicks the song in at the 20th second, with one of those bad ass cool noises, and then the deep voice at “Heartbreaker, feelin’ alright”. This is AiC when it’s fun, not so much anxiety or depression. I like the chorus, the rhythm is fine and the ending is cool. Could have used a guitar solo, but hey you can’t get everything, they can’t play solos at every song. Even if I don’t file this song as one of the best, it’s decent.
10: Confusion
Remarkable intro. The very light guitars reminds me on a summer day when the sky is blue with no clouds, I’m out taking a walk on a field with no people around me, just having a short moment for myself. Then the song starts to become more aggressive, and the vocals soon start. The first couple of times I listened to this song, it sound way too weird and funny, but eventually when I started paying attention to Staley’s voice and accepting the song for what it is, it creates a pretty nice atmosphere that is exactly… confusion, its meant to resemble just that. Blue confusion. “On skinned knees you crawl” so powerful vocals, “I want to set you free” again, such a voice. The guitar solo at 03:35 creates a nice atmosphere to the confusion and just a light feeling of some peace (but confusion).
11: I know somethin’ (bout you)
Heh… this is one funny song. Either you hate it, cause it’s so un-Alice in Chains, this is nothing like their initial sound, or you like it because of its wacky tunes. I kinda like it! Gone are the gloomy and dark tunes and instead there’s a playful, silly and almost childish attitude. I like how Layne and Cantrell just decided to make a song with blues (and jazz!) influences, something they refrained to do later in their career. This song is impulsive, it’s different, it’s nothing you would decide to play on your stereo, and definitely nothing that would impress your friends (hah!). It’s not a song you can play ten thousand times and not get tired off (unlike some AiC tunes that’s spinned A LOT of times in my stereo), it’s not one of their superhits… so what is it?!? It’s just a simple song, take it for what it is! It’s part of an outro, a song to relax after the heavy mid-ones on the album, because if every song was like Love, Hate, Love (which is impossible! There’s only one song that can be of THAT quality) it would lose a bit of it’s magic.
I love how Staley makes a weird noise at the 26th second, the kind of crazy party mood noise :) it’s cool. The chorus “on your space, in my face, I tell you I know something bout you” is surprisingly catchy. This is back in the era when Layne could have a short pause from all the shooting up, smile and just be happy! It’s Facelift bro! At this time maybe AIC wasn’t sure which musical direction they would go in, and this is exactly what this song shows.Wacky stuff, stuck in the 80s but new to the 90s. By no means is this a great song, I just find it fun. “I like to dig and *** around with your day”, man. And besides, I know somethin’ about YOU! ^_^
12: Real thing
Definitely the weakest track on the album. This is the one and only song I tend to skip on it. And hell, I don’t even find it that bad! But I’m pretty sure you’d agree with me if I said this is not the reason we listen to Alice in Chains right. I kinda like the lyrics “I messed around as a little boy, I grew up made the blade my new toy. I grew up went into rehab you know the doctors never did me no good they said son you’re gonna be a new man I said thank you very much can I borrow fifty bucks?” (I wonder what for huh *hint*drugs) Interestingly enough, this song has some country influence in it. Kinda strange for heavy metal band eh? Well, as mentioned, it’s the weakest song, I won’t cry if it’s played on the radio but I’d rather hear something else. Crazy riff, and sexual chocolate baby!
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Finishing up, the best songs and highlights of this album are Sea of Sorrow, Bleed the Freak, put you down, parts of I can’t remember, it ain’t like that, confusion, we die young and of course the absolute masterpiece Love, Hate, Love. Overall, it’s the mood and talent of this album that makes it so good; every song contributes something that perfects the package and piece that is Facelift.
No song at the whole album is bad (that is quite a good achievement don’t you think!) “Sunshine”, “Man in the box”, “Real Thing” and “I know somethin’ ” are not among my favourites. But they’re still fine! Actually, I can’t think of many albums with such a good line up. Usually, a band's debut album is normally good, but needs an improvement on sound quality, in this case, that's not true. Solid masterpiece record, all over. I love it! Maybe the stars were aligned just right for Alice in Chains on this project. Especially considering it was their first album. Worth to note is that on Facelift, Cantrell doesn’t have a big part of the backing vocals Layne does it mostly by himself, this changes on future records.
Make no mistake, Layne Staley was truly addicted to drugs. I think it’s safe to say he was a slave to heroin most of his life. It's easy to see how Staley wishes he could stop, but he just can't; still, he holds out implicit hope, because he keeps on trying. He hopes for better, and reminds himself of that he has to stay away from in order to be less depressed and hopefully get off and stay off the drugs. But he couldn’t. This is truly a sad story, and everyone wishes he was still alive. It's really sad and ironic, because heroin is part of what made this band so special, and it’s also part of what ended it. But I believe he did something for a lot of us. This band might very well be the best anti-drug propaganda ever, cause when you listen to their music you realize just exactly how dangerous it is, and in the very end I think he helped a lot of people to find peace within themselves and ultimately, yes, freedom. I will end this review by quoting another person that knows about Alice in Chains, because I agree with them and couldn’t say it better myself. To someone who isn’t a fan of AiC, these might seem very ridiculous and extremely overdramatic. But for all the fans who know what I’m talking about, you know what I mean. “What may be most shocking, and also engrossing, is the constant foreshadowing of his own demise, and the seeming complete acceptance of it; without the slightest reference of fear, regret or remorse. It's as if he has knew he was chosen to sacrifice his soul to create one of the greatest hard rock albums. All of you who suffer from some form of mental disease or have just another of those general days of trouble, when all hope seems lost please do yourselves a favor and tune in to this piece of brilliance, albeit covered in a thick layer of misery. You will suddenly find your situation a whole lot brighter, because you can't sink any lower than this. Thank you Layne, for giving your life in order for others to save theirs, you will always be remembered. – psychiatrist, from Norway.” Drugs is what gave him life, drugs is what took his life. The needle, the damage and the best music ever recorded.”
(note: I borrowed a few words, max 15, from 4 writers, but never copied or plagiarized anything).
.This Message Edited On 06.16.06
