His voice also sounds deeper on this version. It’s a slow dirge of doom bringing power chords accompanied by Staley’s droning “Ow’s” and “Ya’s”.
Sludge Factory probably makes the best conversion from a highly distorted to an acoustic song on whole album. There is also a decent acoustic solo but it’s way too short. Staley’s vocals are not as strong on this track and his voice never changes. This song has a great bass riff under the upbeat guitar, which is very uncharacteristic of AIC. It’s one of their most popular songs and probably appealed to them a lot. Members of the audience then begin to erupt as the opening guitar of No Excuses starts. The song ends with a woman singing along with Staley’s hum and the same eccentric guitar as in the beginning. This song also has a good but short solo. Staley’s vocals consist mostly of some haunting humming and then ethereal sounding verses. The guitar has Middle Eastern sounding hammer-ons and the drums also sound very foreign with Kinney lightly tapping the symbols like a tambourine. The next song Brother is another great song (this album actually lacks weak songs). The lyrics are so crushing it almost brings tears to the eyes. The whole song is so fragile, it sounds as if it is about to collapse the whole time. A very deep and similarly brooding bass line kicks in along with Staley’s brilliant vocals. This riff is truly beautifully pitiful sounding (in a good way). It starts with simply the crowd cheering and then Cantrell’s guitar can be heard like a soft whisper. The album opener Nutshell is one of the strongest tracks on this whole set. This album like Nirvana’s is also enhanced by the knowledge of Staley’s death. Also Staley vocals are just far darker than Kurt’s. AIC’s instrumentation is much better and lacks the occasional mistakes on guitar that Kurt Cobain made on stage. Nirvana’s version was brilliant but ultimately the AIC version proves the stronger of the two. Strip down the distorted instrumentations and let the singer let loose raw lyrical power. One cannot help but compare this album to Nirvana’s similar MTV Unplugged version.
His death wrapped up years of turmoil surrounding his life. Staley would succumb to his depression and drug addiction April 20, 2002. It was this addicted which fueled much of the pain in his lyrics but it also caused Staley’s inability to tour in later years, along with the band growing disapproval of his addiction, and their hiatus. As every AIC fan knows, Staley was addicted to heroin. His depressing and dark vocals mixed with Cantrell’s brooding, yet melodic, tone shot Alice In Chains at the front of the grunge pack, being one of the spearheading bands of the movement. Layne Staley was certainly one of the most enigmatic front man the grunge movement ever produced. The whole album's focus went from twisted and heavy distortion to focusing on the raw emotional power of Staley's lyrics. All Alice in Chains fans should own this album, as should anyone who's into alternative rock, grunge, or hard rock in general.Review Summary: A stripped down live accoustic performance from Alice In Chains which grasps at the ehart of its listener. In the end, Alice in Chains Unplugged serves as the band's crowning achievement as well as a testament to wasted potential and what might have been. They just seem to resonate more in the acoustic setting. With few exceptions, I prefer the acoustic songs on this album to their studio counterparts. Ultimately, I think this MTV Unplugged album is the best of what Alice in Chains had to offer. No matter what your opinions on addiction, it's hard not to be moved by Staley's singing, particularly on songs like "Down in a Hole" and "Would". The late vocalist had the ability to channel so much of his self-destructive energy into his performances, and this is no exception. Layne Staley's emotional vocals are another key element of this album's power. As much as I love the Alice in Chains studio albums, once you strip the songs down to the acoustic level it exposes just how good these songs really are, and showcases the incredible songwriting talents of Jerry Cantrell. To sum up the band's Unplugged performance in one word - powerful. But when you consider the more melodic direction the band took with their Sap and Jar of Flies EPs, you knew the idea had potential.
#No excuses alice in chains unplugged series#
The Unplugged acoustic series is one of the best concepts to emerge from MTV in recent years, and Alice in Chains' performance ranks among the best of the MTV Unplugged series.Īlice in Chains was one of the heaviest bands to emerge from the Seattle grunge scene in the early 1990's, and listening to albums like Dirt and especially Facelift it's hard to imagine the band in an acoustic setting, stripped of all of the pummeling heaviness of those two albums.
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