Dirt

Alice in Chains were the darkest group to emerge from the grunge explosion of the early ‘90s. Where other groups balanced their moody extremes with pop hooks (Nirvana) or anthemic riffs (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden), Alice in Chains did not believe in balance. As Led Zeppelin fans who worshipped Zep’s eerie, middle-eastern, modal and minor key explorations, Alice in Chains added excessive harmonies to its dense guitar clusters and wrote songs that seemed to be almost exclusively about heroin and the junkie’s vacillation between feelings of endless cravings, powerlessness and numb apathy. Singer Layne Staley eventually died at the hands of his addiction and Dirt remains one of the most disturbing looks at a wasted life. “Junkhead,” “God Smack,” “Hate to Feel,” “Down in a Hole,” “Sickman,” the procession of tunes is relentlessly bleak. Couple this with the group’s stuttering rhythms and sinister guitar riffs and Dirt is one long slide down to the bottom of Dante’s Inferno. It’s frightening in its intensity and its mastery of a world Black Sabbath once merely suggested.