Few bands survive the reboot Alice In Chains launched in 2008, six years after the death of its troubled powerhouse singer, Layne Staley. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell admits the idea of reemerging from stasis with a new vocalist, William DuVall, felt like a gamble. The result was Black Gives Way To Blue, a work worthy of standing alongside the band’s masterpiece, 1992’s Dirt. Though few would have predicted such a return to form, the album was certified gold, topped scads of best-of lists and launched two full tours. The new The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here stays true to the Alice In Chains sound, a dense shroud of gloom occasionally lifted by soaring harmonies and delicate riffs. For every dirge stomp like “Pretty Done” and the menacing creep of “Lab Monkey,” there are echoes of Jar Of Flies’ haunted acoustic beauty (“Voices,” “Choke”) or the filthy groove of “Stone,” the album’s second single. DuVall will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Alice In Chains feature.
DuVall: Joe Carducci was one of the partners at SST Records (Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü. Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr, Bad Brains, Soundgarden, etc.) during the groundbreaking label’s heyday. He has since become an author of several worthwhile books of cultural commentary, including Rock And The Pop Narcotic and Enter Naomi: SST, L.A. And All That. The New Vulgate is his blog, collecting articles written by himself and other socio-political culture critics on everything from ’70s L.A. punk to the current Chinese economy. Whether one agrees or not with all of the assertions made by the various pundits, The New Vulgate is consistently some of the best reading one can find on the web.
