Album of the Week…ish
Or, more accurately, “Album of the Whenever”. I listen to a lot of music, and I’d like to share some that I think is really good.
Alternatively, you can check out my main playlist on Spotify. It’s probably a lot more representative of my taste in music than the cherry-picked albums here.
2025-9-24: Alice in Chains, Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is already one of my favorite bands, so it’s no surprise that they’ve already made this list. What might be more surprising is my choice of album. Before listening to their self-titled album (commonly referred to by fans as Tripod), I hadn’t heard a single song from it, but it quickly became one of my favorites. From the very first note of the album, you know that it’s much more sinister than their earlier material. It reflects a lot on the state of the band: nobody really wanted to make it and lead singer Layne Staley was about to pass the point of no return when it came to addiction, but the band was still on top of the world musically.
I bought the CD for this album during my high school senior trip to Newport, Rhode Island. Two of my three roommates were already pretty big into Alice in Chains, but the one remaining roommate was not a fan. He described it as “unpleasant to listen to,” actually, like it was making him uncomfortable. I really appreciate when music can make you feel that strongly, though, because this is an uncomfortable album about uncomfortable things. It shouldn’t be a “fun” listen; not that I think it should be unlistenable, but it’s a far cry from the hard-rocking sound of Facelift and Dirt and the gentle acoustics of Sap and Jar of Flies. Don’t get the idea that this is noise music, but also don’t go into this expecting songs like We Die Young and Dam That River.
In a way, Tripod is kind of a proto-post-grunge album, or at least it has proto-post-grunge songs. It doesn’t have the squeaky-clean production that bands like Bush and Nickelback would come to have, but it introduced a lot of really important post-grunge ideas, like simultaenous electric and acoustic guitars and more explicitly personal lyrics. The more you listen to this album, the more these kinds of details jump out at you. That’s one of the things I enjoy the most about this album: it never gets old. Sure, AiC has “better” albums, but they wrote this one when they were at their songwriting peak.
Standout tracks: Grind, Heaven Beside You,
Again
Best deep cuts: God Am, Frogs, Over Now