Even though some of Epinions' best and brightest have already covered this album, should I just allow this lovely masterpiece to remain unexplored by the hands and mind of yours truly? HELL NO! I am taking the liberty of starting up my very own one-person write off this week (well, you can join in if you want, but only you). It's called "The Smack Strikes Back", and I vow to review an album every day that was the creative product of one or more heroin junkies. Since I never plan to actually use the drug myself, it's the least I can do for the opium by-product that has livened up the music scene over the past few decades.

It's probably fitting that we start out our voyage with an album that featured a needle jabber on lead vocals and dealt primarily with addiction from one end to the other. "Dirt" is almost the musical bible of heroin addiction, since most of the songs on here address not only the physical evils of narcotics, but the psychological torments that might lead one to (and result from) such powerful substances. The fact that singer Layne Staley abandoned his successful music career to lie around in his apartment and dance with the syringe for many years gives "Dirt" all the credibility it would ever need. This man didn't just illustrate the hazards of heroin abuse in song- he actually overdosed and rotted in his crib for several weeks before being discovered. Rumor has it that identification of the body was not very easy.

Before we proceed any further, let me say that I in no way endorse the use of any drug. I am, however, intrigued by the role that drugs have played in the human artistic experience, and while I have never dabbled with the horse myself, I do believe that everybody should be allowed to carry a small bag of it with them at all times. You know, in the event that one happens to be aboard an airliner that is racing towards the ocean surface; the little bottle of cognac they sell on flights just wouldn't be powerful enough to calm my nerves.

That said, let's chat a bit about Alice In Chains. Though they are in the process of being left behind by fans of rock music, they were quite the hit for a handful of years. Though lumped in with the grungers, I always considered them to be a Sabbath-inspired metal band with a creepy satyr on vocals, and heard very few stylistic similarities between them and those other Seattle groups. But let us not turn this review into a hair-splitting forum of genre debate!

I had the good fortune of seeing them in concert twice, once as the opening act on the "Clash Of The Titans" metal package with Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer (where they were humiliatingly introduced as "Poison") and once in a tiny Orlando club. During both concerts, they generated a dark vibe that made them seem unaccountably creepy and got into humorous squabbles with hecklers in the audience. At the second show, which was in support of "Dirt", Staley actually whacked a guy in the head several times with the microphone because the idiot wouldn't stop spitting at him. Needless to say, they were an entertaining band to watch. (On a side note, a friend of mine roadied for them at a show once, and said they were a bunch of weird dudes who stunk really bad and liked to flash the Devil's hand sign at one another).

When "Dirt" came out in 1992, Alice In Chains was being treated like one of the members of the next big thing (neo-classical rhumba). They weren't pampered and adored in the same way as Nirvana, and actually had to earn a lot of their success by opening for this band and that. "Man In The Box" was their obvious hit, but it didn't elevate them to quite the heights that Kurt Cobain achieved with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", though it still gets played a lot on radio stations. Even Pearl Jam, a band I find more revolting than the unwashed rump of a dysentery-plagued yak, secured a more stable position in the pack than did Layne, Jerry, Mike, and Sean. Alice In Chains, if you ask me, was just too dark and scary for most people.

The members of Alice remained the same from the debut album, "Facelift". Layne was still the primarily howler, though guitarist and principal songwriter Jerry Cantrell (aka Jerry Cantsing) was starting to move his voice into the mix more aggressively, in the form of harmony vocals. Drummer Sean Kinney, I believe, stayed with them until the end, but Mike Starr's days as bassist were numbered. That being so, I do believe that "Dirt" was the second and last Alice album to be performed by the original line-up.

The sonic assault that is "Dirt" begins in earnest with "Them Bones", where Layne knocks the listener upside the ears with a bunch of "AAAH!"s. Sounds to me like the song is in 7/4 time, but I'd hate to stake my reputation on such a claim. The harmonies are thicker than Kabul tar, the Cantrell solo is as impressive as anything the metal pricks were churning out, and Layne is already starting to suspect that "we're born into the grave". A monster of an opening track, if there ever was one.

"Dam That River" is what they opened with the second time I saw them, and it's a heavy, bashing affair with neat guitar melodies and more multi-vocal verses. Here's what you can expect to get in return for urinating upon a candle belonging to the guys in AIC: being broken in a canyon, drowned in a lake, trampled like a snake, pushed, kicked in the face, hit with a rake, having the place burned down around you, and no prospect of being embraced. Would you even want to go there? After all, I watched the man who sang those lyrics stomping around on stage with a broken foot, without the slightest sign of pain apparent on his face.

While most of Alice's songs were written by Cantrell and/or Staley, "Rain When I Die" is curiously listed as a joint effort by all four members. It's slower but still bone-crunching, with a memorable wah-wah line and a classic Staley a-wailin' chorus. And are we now playing in 6/4? Anyway, Staley speaks of "slow castration", which is not the way I like to wrap up a party, and being hated by a girl (who can blame her? he can help her but won't). In Seattle, there's probably always a strong chance of precipitation during one's demise, but in Texas, the odds are not as good. Had AIC hailed from Dallas, the song might've been titled "Azz Blisterin' Sunshine When I Kick It".

A tribal use of tom-toms and metal chugging propel the "Sickman" forward, until the grunge oompah part kicks in. Layne envies flies their short life expectancy, and the creepy middle section revisits territory previously covered in "Bleed The Freak" (not "Super Freak", which shares no territory at all with any AIC composition).

One of their big hits was "Rooster", a power ballad thing about Jerry's Viet-vet papa. Jerry may have written the track, but Layne sure lets the fire loose in his vocal delivery. I don't detect any heroinisms here, just a man troubled by stinging sweat, screaming bullets, ungrateful hacks back home, mosquito death, and the memory of Gloria and the little boy he left behind. I never would've pegged Papa Cantrell as a fan of Miami Sound Machine.

We really get a glimpse into Staley's bad choice of recreational activities on "Junkhead", a brooding Sabbath thing with a neat solo melody and a super snappy (and, as usual, harmonized) chorus. In addition to growling out "yeah!" several times, Layne tells us that a new friend turned him on to "an old favorite" (Trivial Pursuit? bestiality? vintage Atari games?). If we'd just open up our hypocritically normal minds and look beyond our "boring drills" and "books and degrees", we might also discover the joys of watching the dragon burn. Withdrawal, prison time, and death by overdose or HIV included.

The title track is Middle Easternish wah-wah smack rock that is played at a VERY slow pace. I like it, but it always seems to drag for me. Oh yeah, I've always felt that "one who doesn't care is one who shouldn't be" would make a great bumper sticker or campaign slogan.

In addition to being the name of a horrendous Alice In Chains clone band, "Godsmack" is a tightly played rhythmic piece with a quivery vocal line. The wah-wah spacey chorus kicks out the power of a screwdriver one just inserted into an electrical outlet, and we are invited to stick our arms "for some real fun". This line has always struck me as comical, but I've never understood why: "as the hair of one who bit you/smiling, bite your own self too".

A messy interlude then follows, one in which we find some doomy guitar/drum noise, a voice yelling something along the lines of "I Am Iron GOD!", and the quick insertion of the word "redrum".

Then begins the song that I'm least fond of here, the Staley-penned "Hate To Feel". It's passable, if you like that drugged-out style of Zeppelin's "Dazed & Confused". Lyrically is where its strength lies, notably in such lines as "used to be curious, now the sh*t's sustenance" and "all this time I swore I'd never be like my old man" (which is a particularly sound attitude if your name is Jim Nabors Jr.). There's surely something autobiographical going on, but I don't know enough about Staley's past or personal life to say much more than that.

The doomy, Gothic "Angry Chair" is a little better, but is ultimately another Staley brood-fest. More gloomy lyrics, this time about being an angry, naughty little boy who cries at the sight of his own reflection and dies from a lack of hope.

Cantrell goes mostly acoustic and always tender on "Down In A Hole", arguably the band's best ballad. After asking to be buried softly in someone's womb, Staley then proceeds to sing about actions that, if considered literally, will not make one a ladies' man. Why kind of fool sits around in a tomb, holding rare flowers? Or kicks oneself in the teeth? And for Godsmack's sake, why would a person attempt to eat the Sun and not expect to walk away with an incinerated tongue? I can't even get a piece of frozen pizza down without ravishing the roof of my mouth, let alone the nearest celestial body of any significance.

And finally, tacked on to the tail end of this nightmare trip into Brown Powder Township is "Would?", which was originally (I think) on the soundtrack of "Singles". It is a fabulous number, with post-punk influences written all over it. The gliding tom-tom fueled menace opens up into a grand ol' chorus, where Layne admits to having made a big mistake, and begs us to try to see it once his way. While I seem to remember reading that the song was written about some other heroin casualty on the Seattle scene, it serves as a fitting requiem for poor old Layne.

As all of you know, Layne didn't hit "rock bottom" (pun intended) right away, and Alice even had some successful moments after "Dirt". Unfortunately, this album definitely marked the point at which Staley's slide into the chasm became unstoppable and vocationally unproductive. After their participation in Lollapalooza, the band began to play live with less frequency and Layne became a reclusive slave to the needle until his death in 2002.

As it stands, "Dirt" is a heavy, dark, yet heartfelt and sophisticated album about taking one's veins where they don't belong. It's sad that Layne threw away a promising career and a privileged life, but he did manage to squeeze out a couple of things that will likely line my CD shelves until I also become a decaying heap on the loveseat that the EMT's can't identify.

Coming soon on "The Smack Strikes Back": puppies that are skinny for a reason, birthday parties with questionable favors, and ministries that don't espouse anything resembling the Golden Rule.

Related review:
Facelift http://www.epinions.com/content_156104560260

Recommended: Yes