Do you like post-Staley Alice in Chains?

Cafe Society
1

Pandora must have picked up some new rights because Mad Season songs are coming up a lot on my channel. Hearing Layne Staley again really struck a chord and got me listening to some Alice in Chains.

Along the way, I pulled out the two albums Chains has released recently, with William DuVall replacing Layne Staley. I’d heard them before, but it had been a little while.

I’m surprised how great they sound, actually. I definitely miss Staley, but DuVall is a great vocalist as well. It’s obvious he sounds a lot like Staley, but I don’t think it is an imitation.

Neither of their new albums are as good as Dirt or the self-title one. However, they probably have 4-5 great tracks on each and that is pretty impressive. It helps that it isn’t just Jerry Cantrell and three other dudes. It’s 3 Alice in Chains members, with DuVall being the only one who wasn’t in the band until after Staley’s death.

I don’t blame Cantrell for going back to Chains. it was a very creative and successful musical group and even though Layne Staley was a huge part of it, they do seem to have both moved on and kept most of their sound.

Anyway, I think the newer album(Dinosaurs) is the better of the too.

Has anyone seen them live? I know they still play their older songs and I assume DuVall does a great job. I saw them sing old songs on Jimmy Kimmel awhile back and it was impressive.

Do you all still like them or do you find it lame that they are continuing?

2

Voices was good.

3

The voice is really similar, I was surprised.

4

As much as I like Staley, I also enjoy the post-Staley output.

It helps that the other guys were obviously huge contributors to the sound and songs, especially Cantrell. In some ways I think it’s too bad Cantrell’s solo albums were not able to become AIC projects and released under that name. I could be wrong, but I think they knew Layne was never going to contribute again but spent the last 6 years or so of his life being very respectful of his contributions and legacy in the band- and they never would’ve released anything under that name as long as he was still alive. Once he was gone, and after some time, you’ve got 3 members left including 1 who did the majority of the songwriting. It wasn’t like Layne WAS the band (like many “bands” are) and performed with a bunch of hired guns. Those guys are the band, too, and were unable to tour during the height of their commercial success and sat around for 6 years recording a couple songs and piecing together compilations.

5

I know. This song sounds like Layne was resurrected.