Alice In Chains - Alice In Chains(aka Tripod)POLL

a tossup between Grind Sludge Factory and Heaven Beside You for me.
Album was a disappointment for sure at the time, kudos for trying to make an uncompromising album that didn't follow a successful formula, which makes it worthwhile checking out now and again, but def the weakest by far of their stuff.

I have never heard a note of this. Weird.

on the Dirt thread more people wanted this polled than Facelift for some reason.

I'm just trying to figure out how I completely missed it - AiC were an important part of my late teen years, but I guess they were off my radar by the time this came out.

1995 it came out

voted for a single again. ("heaven beside you")

I honestly don't remember this album well enough to comment on whether it's patchy or whatever, but the stuff I do remember ("heaven beside you," "sludge factory," "frogs") trumps the best stuff on facelift, imo.

nah

i remember having a big debate on how a 15-year-old whiney should spend his $15: This album or the Foo Fighters debut. I chose this and was crestfallen when it sucked. I wish I could go back and tell 15-year-old whiney that the correct answer was "another album altogether."

i remember how exactly two of these songs go--"Heaven Besides You" and "Over Now" the rest is a blur

"Heaven Beside You"

The singles on this one ('Grind', 'Heaven Beside You' and 'Again') were pretty good, but like most others, I can't remember anything else about it. Oh well. I'll vote 'Again' - even the 'hoo-hoo' bit at the end isn't cheesy as one might expect in hindsight.

the reason noone remembers most of it is maybe because they haven't listened to the album much and probably not since it came out?

this is a strange record with a really grimy mix and some truly oddball lyrical observations. i imagine layne was pretty far gone by this stage.

'grind' is definitely my favourite.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

fucking "Grind"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

worst turn out of all the AiC polls lol

i had a copy on cassette. from what i remember i enjoyed "again" a lot, i think it was a ballad.

love how Grind kicks off like they've been jamming on that massive riff for several bars already. great way to start a song.

Brush Away is probably the best song to get 0 votes. that one has a really evil, infected-sounding solo.

now that this album is almost, what, 20 years old, i'm starting to appreciate how fucked-up most of it sounds.

God Am should have got a vote or two, its really nice

sure, God's all powerful....but does he have lips

this album's great and this poll sucks

"shame in you"

It took me 25 years to realise that this is actually a great album.

"Head Creeps" and "Brush Away" are amazing

Chorus of “grind” makes me think of proggy allman bros southern rock or something

in a good way

this album is twisted

yes

really love the slowed down acoustic arpeggio part of “over now”

i like to contrast it with dirt, an album full of songs in odd time signatures and with hairpin turns and secret trapdoors whereas these songs just sink and sink like their heels are stuck in quicksand

Sludge Factory on Unplugged is excellent, & a fun counterpoint to the version on Tripod.

man this record is dark as hell, real corrosive sound

God Am has a dope snow riff during chorus

I'm e-bow

this record has legit riffs and all that but it also just sounds like it’s melting

agree with Brad about the pointed contrasts between this & Dirt. Dirt is muscular & direct, with clean breaks & sharp departures. Layne swats every note shrewdly & the guitars have teeth. Tripod meanders gauchely in comparison. the songs run a leaden course until they stall. and yet it's hypnotic & powerful & hard to look away from. and it's brave too. the ugly textures are a choice in service of the harrowing stories to be told.

Cantrell has a ton of interesting things going on in Brush Away.

"Frogs" is such a weird-assed song, yet it was one of my favorites despite it sounding like a fever dream

i love that i couldn't tell you another record that sounds or feels like this one

my mother got this for me for my birthday as it was released the week before I turned 15. I remember not shutting up about the album on the BBS I was chatting on the day it came out and everybody getting annoyed

riffs like creeping basement mold

ok I'm a complete dumdum, I had The Nona Tapes mockumentary on VHS and until now didn't realize that Nona was Jerry Cantrell in drag. I knew it was someone in drag but I didn't know it was JERRY.

Sean Kinney as the drunk clown was hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Ohyj8FmLo

no matter how many times i listen to "sludge factory" i am never ready for "YOUR WEAPON IS GUILT" *song completely falls apart into a different and much odder arrangement???*

oh man I love that part.

i used to just go in chat channels in the 90s and type that over and over until i got banned

interestingly though I think why the acoustic version worked is he abandoned the weird falsetto at the opening of the song and sung it in his chest voice

yeah, that weird falsetto always catches me off guard, being such an incongruent feature so early on in the song.

the vocal production all over the album is like... nonstop bizarre choices. love it

even on ostensible single "again"

HEY

this is very in character for me but while i could never say this record is better than dirt, i think it's become my favorite aic record

still obsessed with this record and listening to it daily, rarity for me

least favourite for me these days is Heaven Beside You, mainly because it sounds the most like a song from a JC solo album.

yeah I got burnt on that one so fast back in 1995 even

I used to dislike Nothin' song, now I kinda like its super ugly chorus (in which JC's attempts to pick up the pace are stalled by Layne miring the whole thing in slop).

yodalayeeeeeeeee

“heaven” was my gateway into AiC, and kinda Nirvana indirectly? it was played on the radio around the same time as “man who sold the world” so I sort of group them together as great wintry moody minor chord alt rock things

it's prob weird that i didn't really dig "heaven beside you" as a radio hit but love it on the album

unplugged version of Heaven is one of my alltime faves

Kinney's a beast on Nothin' song, actually.

like peanut butter on the brain

such a weird line!

I remember hearing a radio interview with the band in 98 or 99 or so, during which Layne unexpectedly joined the call from his home in Seattle. A fan called in & asked Layne what Frogs was all about & in his typical style, he said something along the lines of: "oh it's about those green, slimy things". was nice to know he never lost his sense of humour, even towards the end.

Unplugged Heaven translates well but I miss the original solo

your weapon is guilt

Chug chuuuuuug chuuuuuug

I've never listened to alice in chains lol

guess I should fix that

Like not even the singles or just not the albums?

nothin' (that I can recall)

Maybe heretical in the context of this thread, but listen to Dirt first.

Yea Tripod works better habit heard what comes prior

My recommended listening order:

Dirt
Jar of Flies (sorbet!)
Facelift (cock rawk!)
Sap
Tripod (aka s/t)

oh simon should absolutely listen to dirt first

the s/t takes work, as evidenced by this thread, even though it's one of the most singular rock records ever made

Sap could make a rather lovely appetiser before Dirt actually.

Not literally, that would be horrible.

world dies i still pay taxes

so far the s/t feels more my speed tbh

lol well that works too

"sludge factory" is one of the most apropos song titles of all time

I like how most of the lyrics to Again have a dumb, silly rhyminess to them, but then Layne throws a curveball with “your weak will won’t help to heal her heart”, which clearly carries deeper, more heartbreaking meaning.

wish I still owned the t-shirt I used to wear all the time with the cover of this album on the front (and the song titles on the back).

this is the best album ever

"Head Creeps" reminds me of my depressive summer of freshman year of high school and having zero friends.

well really the whole album but also that song

Frogs is such a jam

Eerie tune that one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEr9OUcqpo

been listening to a lot of aic and mastodon so this cover appeared in my youtube suggestions. really great, to the point where toward the end it feels like they brought the more diseased vibe from the other songs on the album into "again"'s atmosphere

that's an inspired choice of cover, one that suits Mastodon & still somehow takes them outside of their orbit. but yeah, sick performance for sure.

time to call the doggies off

WORLD DIES I STILL PAY TAXES

"God Am" rules. I karaoked it once and this person in the crowd got mega-excited.

lyrically, it sounds cliched, but there's so many good one-liners

the aforementioned "world dies, I still pay taxes", "all bloomin' life you're feeding, can't hide sick ones you're weeding"

also that chorus, and that bridge.

yeah I especially love the ebow (?) guitar in the chorus of “god am”.

“shame in you” is a great ballad

yeah shame in you is my favourite off this one

Which is the other American band also ranked inside the Top 50 of VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, also formed in the late 1980s and still active today, also with a three-word name which contains 13 letters in total, all of which appear in the word “Chileans”? (apologies for tangentially related post but this tickled me when I read it in a guardian quiz)

Fuuuuck.

This was such a polarizing album from my friends in college that were into them, every single one of them HAAAAAAAAAAAATED this album so hard. I loved it and used to spend way too much breath trying to explain why and defend it.

I never understood why people were so opposed to this one? I

they’re just see through faded, super jaded

What was the answer, Ledge?!

From what I recall, most of my friends found it too "slow" and "plodding" for their tastes.

xp nine inch nails!

Argh!