REVIEW: Alice in Chains pleases several generations with grunge metal mayhem
You can’t argue the success that Alice In Chains has enjoyed of late – with the group’s latest album Rainier Fog earning a Grammy nomination, and summit positions on the Billboard and iTunes charts.
But to more discerning ears, how a band that earned much of its notoriety in the grunge-fueled 1990s could still be relevant in a milquetoast-millennial-setting dominated by Arcade Fire, The Lumineers and Tame Impala remained a question mark.
The answer came soon enough in the crowded cavern of the Edmonton Expo Centre on Saturday night, when the Seattle quartet took to the stage. Launched by a sophisticated light show powerful enough to summon even the most wayward UFO to Area 51, Alice In Chains fired its Emerald City-artillery at an eager audience hungry for some grunge-metal mayhem.
Never a band to be discordant in its ribcage-walloping assault, Alice In Chains still remains quite adept at strutting along that blurry border between those grunge years and their penchant for riffs reminiscent of classic metal. In the former, the lyrical introspection and the semi-tonal riff walk-ups still hearkens their hometown Seattle sound that framed those nascent years, especially with showstoppers that included Them Bones, Rooster, No Excuses and Down in a Hole.
Then there’s the classic metal, delivered with a plodding crunch in nuggets like Man In the Box and Dam That River that would fit well in a classic rock playlist dotted with high-octane offerings by Motley Crue and Van Halen. That said, founding guitarist Jerry Cantrell always distanced himself from those poodle-coiffed counterparts with a delivery more precise than pretentious. He’s never one to succumb to endless shredding, preferring to punctuate the din with some well-crafted leads. For their parts, bassist Mike Inez and original drummer Sean Kinney remain as solid as ever in laying down the sonic foundations.
As for lead vocalist and guitarist William DuVall (top photo, and above), time has erased any doubts about his ability to keep a crowd going, not to mention any arguments pegging his abilities against those of his predecessor Layne Staley, whose 2002 death was testament to the needle and the damage done. DuVall demonstrated the range needed to transmit the angst surrounding their material, much of it dominated by depressive and socially-alienating subject matter. To that end, while he was energetically in top form, there wasn’t a hint of a macho swagger in any of his steps.
As for the relevance and staying power of Alice In Chains, their newer material, with pieces like The One You Know, Red Giant, Never Fade and the title track Rainier Fog might sound more melancholy than works on their previous five albums, but they were never out of place on the setlist.
Additionally, that continuity has given them enough staying power to attract the widest of demographics that showed up on Saturday. Older gents sporting porn-staches dotted masses that included biker chicks in fringed asphyxiating tops, and youths with Kool-Aid-stained hairdos. Given that the number of Bic lighters held aloft equaled the flashlight settings of smartphones, it’s safe to say that Alice In Chains had all the walks-of-life bases covered.
