Tuesday, September 15, 2009

You I'll not follow

So I'm driving home today and I finally heard it. The new Alice in Chains song.

Wow. Just...wow.

I understand the desire the surviving members must have to make more music and even the desire to work together again but this shit is just wrong. The new singer, no idea who it is and I'm not going to waste time trying to find out, is trying his hardest to sound like Layne Staley. You might remember that Layne Staley was the original singer and, in my not at all humble opinion the most talented member of the group prior to his untimely and much lamented death. His voice was like a soul being tormented in the worst part of hell expelling lyrics that made you feel exactly what that felt like (I speak primarily about those songs whose lyrics Staley wrote himself or wrote the lion's share of. Just listen to an AiC CD and you'll figure out which is which.)

Now you have some random guy doing a second rate Staley impersonation. It's fucking sick. I have lost all respect for the other members of that band. How anyone could ever think this was a good idea is beyond me. Form a new band with a new singer and then find the sound of that band. Don't spit on Staley's memory by hiring some no talent wannabe and then trying really hard, and failing, to sound like Alice in Chains. Henceforth I will only refer to this abomination as Jerry Cantrell's Band.

Cantrell, you're a piece of shit. Truly.

Then against my better judgement I tried to actually listen to the song. Imagine if your ears had balls and then got got kicked in the balls in your ears. It's like that. A wildly overproduced, poorly written piece of offal. That guy can try, and Cantrell and company can work the boards to help him try to sound like Layne but you'll never fool a real fan. Layne would never sing a song with lyrics that are Nickelback level insipid and include the word California in them, what, 9000 times. Did you bring in Anthony Kiedis to give a rewrite to your Nickelback songs?

The three surviving members of AiC who are currently in Jerry Cantrell's Band clearly have no respect for Layne, no respect for AiC fans and no respect for themselves. I've never wanted an album to bomb so badly in my life.

The entire thing makes me feel sick. If you'll excuse me I have to go listen to Dirt about a million fucking times to wash the foulness out of my ears and hopefully off my brain.

3 comments:

The Taco Prophet said...

I really didn't manage to retain enough information about the song to formulate even as much bile as you just dropped. The song is entirely bland and forgettable. Totally non-Layney. I had already forgotten the damn song half way through it. Seriously, what the fuck?

The announcement that AiC had put out a new song (hey, didn't I hear a new song by AiC recently? Maybe? No, couldn't have. AiC songs fucking hook you, man. I'd remember that) did prompt me to go on a massive Staley binge a few weeks ago, though, so that was good, anyway.

The Taco Prophet said...

I really didn't manage to retain enough... oh shit, it got me again.

DAMN YOU AND YOUR AMAZING POWERS OF BLAND FORGETTABLENESS, JERRY CANTRELL BAND!

Tim said...

I'm just going to repeat myself here, so Blue doesn't have a tizzy.

I have yet to hear the new AIC, but the lack of Layne makes me do not want.