![[shiny grey monotone]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipd6KiHDAbQRs8CrRmxCtqbg5yoSbtwAR2w4FDFERXJfP-Wgf3Cz4jKCnaAK371bePkk6lKYG-xjoKhUdF7yW1blhH6YjV-KoEofpS4GD9XwZyDKQbxxbHb3Q5NFTmvea6ecFdMdVZWqoj/s854-r/1.jpg)
released 1990
it's september
it's a little chilly
it's raining
perfect alice in chains weather
i don't remember how it was i had talked my step-mother into buying this on cassette for me at a value city (come on now...we've all shopped there)...but i remember walking out into the parking lot on the way to the car and my sister took a look at it and was all like "alice in chains? facelift?" while giving me an are-you-serious? look...and dammit...i was serious...i had gotten seriously hooked by the video for "man in the box" that i had seen on HEADBANGER'S BALL a few days prior
and boy was i shocked to find out that he had in fact been buried in his shit...and not spit...and the dog that gets beat had his nose shoved in shit...not spit
it was a revelation
i've always held alice in chains a little close to me (and not just because of the chains...waaa waaaa)...this album was my first foray into that whole grunge thing...the first time i'd heard nirvana...i didn't really find them all that special...then there was soundgarden...and honestly...at first...wasn't really a fan of their earlier stuff...but there was just something about alice in chains...they were darker...they were broodier...they're singer didn't need to sound like an aggravated child or a power rock god (though there was a bit of a sleaze factor on this album as most of the members had been part of some glam rock bands before coming together...seek out any of their demos from the late 1980's and wonder what happened)...and they had done the unplugged thing before the mtv deemed it hip and cool
and after this album...they just seemed to get better...SAP took you out of the basement and sat you on the couch with the shades closed...DIRT took you back into the basement and shoved you into a smaller room with only a single light bulb...JAR OF FLIES opened the door and allowed to go back upstairs and open the blinds just a little...and SELF-TITLED made you realize that you're probably just better off in the basement with some candles
then layne staley died...and you're just stuck down there (in a hole)
as for this new fangled "alice in chains"...all i have to say about that is: no
so now that i've rambled on enough...
DL: facelift
8 comments:
Great post! My Mom wouldn't buy me Facelift but my cousin did...
New Alice in Chains > old Alice in Chains
DAMMIT LAYNE STAYLEY'S ZOMBIE!
GO BACK TO BED!
I remember when this came out. I had a job as a courier driving around Denver and I don't think the Facelift cassette left my tape deck for almost 6 months.
the first four or five songs kick ass, the rest not much at all. always loved the first few seconds of "bleed the freak", and the chorus/ending of sunshine is just totally glorious.
and you can't go wrong with the opening riff to "we die young" (or the rest of the song for that matter)
yeah. those first four-odd songs are the best AIC stuff, in my opinion. well, the acoustic stuff excluded.
have you heard "social parasite"? that's a good one too.
i had that song on some random mixtape back in the day...and someone thought it was the band sponge
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