A reformed and retooled Alice In Chains hosted a listening party in Los Angeles Tuesday night to preview their upcoming Black Gives Way To Blue album, after which they performed a three-song acoustic set to a wildly enthusiastic crowd.
In typical Hollywood fashion, the late-'80s hair metal scene was out in full force, making an odd mix at the bar (which was free, as was the In-N-Out) with the hipster/scentesters. After elbowing my way through the hordes (which included Duff McKagan, ex-Guns N' Roses) with my free Bass and double-double I ran into our very own Jeremy Azevedo, marveling at the self-gravitational saline/collagen/bleached freakshow that passes for beauty in Tinseltown.
The album itself was far from a disappointment, but the real surprise came at the end when the screen rose and the group appeared to play a few songs. Jerry Cantrell and new co-vocalist William DuVall appeared perfectly in synch on the classic "Down In A Hole," before debuting - for the first time anywhere - the songs "Your Decision" and "Black Gives Way To Blue". DuVall did a strikingly good job of honoring Layne Staley, the band's original singer who died of a heroin overdose in 2002 - despite bearing a striking resemblance to one Mr. Lenny Kravitz.
Here's our point-counterpoint take on the night:
Johnny: So - Alice In Chains didn't hire Lenny Kravitz after all...
Jeremy: Are you sure about that? I distinctly remember seeing him on stage with them last night. That's not the sort of thing I would imagine.
Johnny: Must've been the free beer and In-n-Out (who put THAT finger-lickin' plan together?). I'm pretty convinced it wasn't Lenny though. Dude didn't have a nose-ring or a crazy blonde-afro drummer chick with him. He did, however, handle "Down In A Hole" pretty well though, gotta give him that. Cantrell looked more nervous than he did when they broke out the new songs.
Jeremy: That's because Cantrell writes all the songs, and always has, so far as I know. For proof you need look no further than the fact that the new album sounds an awful lot like the old albums, even with an entirely different lead singer in the group.
Johnny: Well that was kind of the best and the worst part of the experience. Sounded like old AIC, sure, but without Layne's signature wail to push the envelope and really hit that sonic G-spot it was hard not to notice his absence. William DuVall's got great pipes, and he walks a very thin line between a Layne impression and an homage, but there's no unleashed rawk to what he's putting out there. Still, a much better showing than I anticipated. So long as I never have to ever see that video again...
Jeremy: Yeah that listening party wasn't really winning any style points by showing the same goddamn video on repeat for two hours straight. I also don't know why it took an army of engineers an extra hour to get around to playing the album, which was then accompanied by one (1) single image projected on the screen, per song. A theater with three gigantic fuckin' screens in it and they couldn't have even done any visuals or something?
Johnny: That seems to be a problem with most listening parties. Zero effort put into the actual listening experience. They should give out shrooms at the door and put on a tripped-out hippie laser lightshow - that'd be something worth remembering.
Still though, the songs came off well, and I preferred the live context far more than the album itself. But I wasn't disappointed in what I heard. They didn't stomp all over Layne's grave by bringing in the dude from freakin' Godsmack. I guess that's what matters most.
Jeremy: Right, all presentation issues aside, the album itself was undeniably good, but really only if you're already an Alice in Chains fan you know? They have a particular sound and they rarely deviate from it. In fact, if you put this album on a mixtape with the bands prior catalogue and played it for an uninitiated listener, it's a safe bet they wouldn't be able to guess which came first. This is both a good and a bad thing... Everyone gets down on Robert Plant for dissing Led Zeppelin to make folk music with Alison Krauss, but at the end of the day, he's an old dude and his tastes have changed. On the one hand, it's great to see your teen idols still rocking a decade or two later, but on the other, it's also a bit sad isn't it? I don't know about you, but seeing 40 year old dudes in leather pants sitting on stools playing sludgy grunge rock sort of makes me feel old, to be perfectly honest.
