In their way, Alice did have more overtly honky-tonk material than Pearl Jam, especially Jerry Cantrell’s “Don’t Follow” and maybe even the tearjerker special “Nutshell,” and Facelift ’s silly-putty approach to this not-yet-named genre did lead to the fascinatingly James Brown-like “(I Know Somethin’) ‘Bout You” and the Guns ‘n’ Roses choogle of “Put You Down.” But their sound is more of a ball and chain than their peers’, so it’s always obvious when they Do Something Else, i.e. respectively, and Alice was their diametric opposite, always chugging and oozing and sludging, in the glow of uncool reverb and harmonized guitar leads that had more in common with, like, Warrant or Whitesnake, even if their dark subject matter and predilection for Slayer-ugly riffs and turgid vocal layering did not. Pearl Jam’s arena rock perhaps came closest, but they were the least crunchy, least power-chord-beholden of these bands, even incorporating funk and country sounds as early as 1991’s Ten and 1993’s vs. The garage rock that permeates Mudhoney and the ennui by which Nirvana turned punk do not have much basis in Alice in Chains’ urgent sludge. But Alice in Chains also had the least to do with Sub Pop of any eventual multiplatinum band that would come to be associated with grunge, and they spent more time on the road with the likes of Metallica and Van Halen.įrom their corny Photoshop-Cronenberg album covers and slimy Goosebumps-style logo, you could tell Alice in Chains were significantly more metal in look and feel. Since Layne Staley and Axl Rose had nothing in common as singers, and ‘80s-style metal was hitting its awkward stage in 1990, the change was inevitable.
The term “grunge” was coined by Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt in 1987, the same year that Alice in Chains were born, but they spelled it Alice ‘n’ Chains at the time and from that tiny but important distinction you could guess what they sounded like. But rarely does it guarantee that unrealized debut albums sound good. Facelift didn’t know what it was, and that in itself was exciting.
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