Black Gives Way to Blue

The year is 2009. It's been 13 years since a major Alice in Chains release, though the band are back together with William Duvall as the new Layne Staley, the latter of whom has been gone for several years now. The band have been touring on the old material since 2006, and speculation is going wild about whether there will be a new album, or whether there even should be. In fact, the idea of an Alice in Chains sans Layne is so divisive among fans that some resent the band even touring under the name, much less releasing anything new. Many feel it's "disrespectful" to Layne's memory, despite the fact that none of these fans had a personal relationship with Layne, and the three surviving members would be much more qualified to make a decision about that. Ultimately, the material itself should speak to whether reviving the name was a worthy cause. Duvall is clearly competent enough on the old material, but do Cantrell and co. have it in them to write material that manages to both play to his strengths and stay true to the AiC sound? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes, and I think most fans' doubts were quelled with the release of Black Gives Way to Blue, but it was certainly in question for a long time, and I remember having friends who discussed many of these thoughts at the time. Not having been a fan of the band while Layne was alive or even when this album was released, I don't have as many strong feelings about the band's reformation, but the important thing is that this album has stood the test of time 15 years out, for a number of reasons that make it essentially tied with Dirt for my favorite Alice in Chains record ever.

The biggest thing in this album's favor is the absolutely god-tier production. Honestly, this is a contender for my favorite production of any metal album ever released. While the likes of Dirt still had a fantastic sound for 1992, this takes everything that made that album sound good up to 11, without falling prey to any of the pitfalls of many modern metal productions. Crystal clear yet still heavy and grimy when it needs to be, everything sounds absolutely massive yet totally balanced, with opener "All Secrets Known" showing off three simultaneous guitar tracks that are all perfectly audible and at the same time very much possessive of that "Alice in Chains" tone we've come to know and love. The bass is always audible yet never overpowering, the drums maintain a sound that' has all the organic dynamism of a live performance yet all the clarity and gravity that comes with the power of studio mastering. Honestly, there's not a damn thing wrong with it, and it provides a masterclass template that other modern bands can and should look to when wondering what direction to take. Of course, an album could have the best production in the world and still have poor songwriting or performances, so we need to talk about everything else this album succeeds at.

Vocalist William Duvall does a more than competent job - he'll never be Layne, nor do he or any other member of the band ever attempt to suggest that he is. However, even with songwriting that does have some subtle touches geared more towards his voice - a more nuanced, contemplative approach on average, playing to a voice that's a bit more ethereal and less visceral - Duvall is rarely the star of the show here. On many of the tracks, it feels more like Jerry Cantrell has taken over Layne's spot, and Duvall replaces Cantrell as backup vocalist. This isn't always true - for example, "The Last of My Kind" does a great job of showcasing Duvall's ability, showing some of his grittiest and most powerful snarling out of all the AiC releases with him - but many of the best tracks, such as "All Secrets Known" and "Your Decision," feature Cantrell on lead vocals, while the album's breakout single, "Check My Brain," features a harmony between the two, with equal emphasis on both. To his credit, Cantrell sounds absolutely excellent here, and the songwriting is as much tailored to his vocals as it is to Duvall's. In fact, the major musical themes on the album, other than the general AiC filth and moroseness, seem to be Cantrell working through his grief over the death of Staley and the band as a project, as well as the subsequent rebirth of the latter. The lyrical themes echo these ideas perfectly, with nearly every track alluding to one of these ideas in one way or another, making this essentially a concept album, and in many ways a spiritual successor to Dirt. If Dirt is the story of a broken man edging nearer to the void, Black Gives Way to Blue is the redemption arc, showing the path out of the darkness and into the light, as Cantrell talks in "Check My Brain" about finding himself in the sun.

Nothing sums up the thematic ideas here better than opener "All Secrets Known," though, and it's also my favorite song musically on the album - and quite possibly my favorite AiC track of all time, as it just checks every box I want when I listen to one of their albums. Cinematic yet ominous opening guitar tracks lead into Cantrell giving the first verse: 'Hope, a new beginning / Time, time to start living / Like just before we died.' This clearly refers to the band's revival and his hopes of recreating the success and experience they had in the mid 90s before breaking up. The line 'There's no going back to the place we started from' is a bit of a dialogue with the controversy over the band's revival, telling fans he knows that it won't be the same, but can still be worthy of the name he and Layne created 20 years earlier. While the second verse starts with 'Hurt, falling through fingers,' I always thought it said "dirt" until I saw the actual lyrics, which I think makes more sense as a reference to the name of the same album, and suggesting again that those days are gone, while the line 'Trust in the feeling / There's something left inside' continues the theme of rebirth I've been talking about. Finally, the third verse mentioning 'Old wounds are healing / Truth is worth saving / I want to feel alive' is a very personal expression of Jerry's experiencing with losing Layne and desire to get through his grief with the creation of this album. This song still manages to give me chills with its brief yet incredibly cohesive narrative of Jerry and the band's journey with loss and redemption in the form of Black Gives Way to Blue.

"Check My Brain" takes things down a notch in terms of ambition, feeling more like a successor to your "Man in the Box" style track with its catchiness and accessibility, though the songwriting is still top-notch, as evidenced by its commercial success on the charts, showing the band still has what it takes to draw in the masses as well as the hardcore fans. "The Last of My Kind" gives us a taste of the heavier, nastier side of the band, and while it's perhaps more evident here than elsewhere that Duvall isn't Layne and can't quite deliver the goods in the same raw, forceful way, this is still a brilliant track when taken on its own merits. It also serves as the first direct tribute to Layne, the titular "last of his kind" who is accurately described as 'So young, so brazen, so unholy' during his classic run with the band in the 90s. "Your Decision" gives us an excellent ballad, one of the band's most thoughtful and introspective numbers, with profound lines that hit incredibly hard like 'Overwhelmed, you chose to run' and 'No one plans to take the path that brings you lower,' describing Staley and other band members' decision to turn to drugs which led to eventual pain and decline. This is another all-time favorite for me with just how on-point it is thematically and emotionally.

"A Looking in View" is a heavier track but does feature a softer chorus, akin to the likes of "Angry Chair" in its structure, though lyrically it feels more like a sequel to "Would?", trying to look at things from Layne's perspective as the former track attempted to look at things from Andrew Wood's. The line 'Desperate plans make sense from the low light' echoes something like Would's 'So I made a big mistake / Try to see it once my way.' It really is kind of incredible how much foresight the band had, with "Would" describing Andrew Wood's heroin overdose cutting his life tragically short, and "A Looking in View" showing history repeating itself with Layne. It's horribly tragic, yet when you look at the fact that Staley was already victim to heroin use around the time that Dirt came out, it's unfortunately not hard to make the connection even then. "When the Sun Rose Again" is more of a ballad with an interesting main riff that almost feels waltzy in the context, but breaks into a very upbeat chorus that brings us out of the doom and gloom of the last couple of tracks, with Cantrell's delivery of the lines 'It seems you prophesized, all of this would end / Were you burned away when the sun rose again' making direct reference to the general sentiment that Alice in Chains died with Layne Staley, and almost serving as an "I told you so" to fans thinking nothing good could come of a reunion.

"Acid Bubble" takes things down into the darkness again, providing us another harmony between Duvall and Cantrell that works quite well, though the stripped-down songwriting and slow, plodding pace make it feel a bit more like a Jerry Cantrell solo song than an Alice in Chains one; it wouldn't sound at all out of place to me on Degradation Trip. I do think some of the sections go on a bit too long as well, and the transition from the first section to the second, more aggressive one is a bit jarring, making this one of the weaker tracks overall though still quite solid and enjoyable. It continues riffing on the idea of the band's comeback defying fans' expectations, with lines like 'You tried to kill me off / Surprised I remain.' "Lesson Learned" is back to catchy and rockin', though the hooks aren't as strong as Check my Brain's. This one deals with the struggle of putting out new material and making it fresh, talking about burnout and the difficulty of "striking gold" musically. "Take Her Out" brings us the arabesque main melody reminiscent of the title track of Dirt. While on its surface it seems to be about a girl, I think the line 'She's not just mine / Want to take her out again' can serve as a metaphor for Cantrell wanting to revive the Alice in Chains name but not wanting to do so without the approval of the other band members, and is still unsure whether he has Layne's tacit sign-off from beyond the grave. This track has some really cool guitar work, though, and doesn't just feel like a derivative version of their earlier tracks in this musical vein.

Finally, the last two tracks, "Private Hell" and "Black Gives Way to Blue" are the saddest and truly feel like the mourning of a great loss. The opening of "Private Hell" is incredibly vulnerable and melancholic, feeling like something that wouldn't be out of place on The Cure's Disintegration, for example, while the lyrics can be incredibly poignant, such as 'Promises abound, you rarely find it to begin / Maybe I'm afraid to let you all the way in.' This shows Jerry at his most exposed and pained, and the fact that he's able to open up so completely about everything that went into opening up old wounds to resurrect the band here tells you exactly why this album succeeded to the extent that it did. If he had phoned it in for even a minute, given us a little less than the whole of his grief and sorrow and frustration, we wouldn't have gotten this masterpiece. The ethereal layered vocals and combination of acoustic and electric guitars and even synths at one point all add up to make this a really incredible piece that's one of the standouts of the album.

Finally, the title track plays out almost as a eulogy to Layne. a brief track with some guitar sounds that feel almost like dirges, but after the intro becoming a very stripped down, plain ballad that feels very heartfelt, getting rid of the cinematics and flourishes elsewhere on the album to show that Layne's passing was a very human experience for Jerry, family members, and all others who knew him. Honestly, this is probably the saddest Alice in Chains track, even more so than the stuff on the self-titled album, which was more bleak and claustrophobic rather than mournful. The line 'Fading out by design' hits especially hard for me, as I've had more than one close friend die young at this point, and one of them was due to a recklessness and disregard for longevity that echoes Layne's in many ways. In fact, having attempted suicide myself in the past, this idea that I've outlived my usefulness as I've headed into my thirties continues to haunt me, and while I have moved past that utterly apathetic recklessness to an extent I don't think I'll ever manage to shake that idea entirely. That's what's so great about this message, though: it shows that one can go through something like that and come out on the other side, creating something like Black Gives Way to Blue in your 40s and experiencing a renaissance, as opposed to the notion that at some point "it's all downhill from here." This continues to inspire me and hope that I will hit my groove one day, a happier and/or more successful place than what I've largely experienced in my life so far.

This album hits me harder than any other Alice in Chains release and stands as one of my favorite albums of all time. From a songwriting perspective, I feel like it actually edges out Dirt slightly, though when it comes to vocal performance it's slightly lacking, making it more of a tossup. However, Black Gives Way to Blue is essential for any fan of the band or really good music in general, and I'd challenge anyone not to find something to like about this album - even the most diehard Layne Staley fan who says "using the Alice in Chains name after his death is a travesty" or some such would be hard pressed to listen to the near-hour of music here and not have something resonate. This is just a special piece of work, and shows without a shadow of a doubt that Jerry and co. were 100% correct to do what they did here. While the next two albums are enjoyable, they don't have the same impact that this does, being a tale of mourning and redemption that still has the desperation that drove the earlier Alice in Chains albums. The latest two albums feel a bit more "safe," not really being inspired by any particular struggle or painful experience, though they're still worth listening to. If you hear one modern album from the band, though, it needs to be this one. Thank you, guys, for making an album that continues to give voice to many of my feelings and insecurities as I age, and I suspect can do the same for many others.