Alice in Chains- Facelift (1990)

I didn't buy, this, Alice in Chains' first full album, until surprisingly late, around 2006 or so. I used to play it a lot while playing Civilization III, which shows you how long ago that was, but I nevertheless hadn't heard more than the two big singles during the years when "Grunge" was a thing.

This album has always, therefore, been a bit of an artifact from the past for me. It may be from the beginning of theband's career, but I heard it four years after Layne Staley's horrble, squalid, lonely death after a period of years where his life had gradulally narrowed into nothing but video games, filth, and heroin. It's unnerving how "Sea of Sorrow", in its lyrics "You live tomorrow/I will not follow..." foreshadows Staley's death less than twelve years after the album's release.

In 1990, though, this is at one fresh and similar to the later albums we all perhaps know better. It's heavier, more obviously showing their early pigeonholing as a metal band, but otherwise pretty much what you's expect. "Man in a Box" and "Sea of Sorrow" are standout tracks but, while their later albums would improve on this, it stands up bloody well, and preserves an ineffable Seattle-ness in its sound that later albums would not quite be able to catch.