Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way To Blue Album Review

Review of Alice In Chains album Black Gives Way To Blue

Alice In Chains return with Black Gives Way To Blue, their latest album, and, after I'd gotten over the fact that they weren't Creed, I could get into the album with no preconceptions; I've never been into them really and so will be reviewing this as if the band weren't massive. The very accomplished, confident and polished sound belies this being from a new band, however- if it was, I'd be extremely impressed.

It's a mid-tempo grungey, almost Tool-esque affair, but the songwriting isn't really the best on some of the tracks: Check My Brain is entirely superfluous and sometimes the band fall back on the same sounds and it turns quite samey. They do try and mix it up a little with the odd acoustic track like Your Decision, which sounds like a good Staind song. The band work at their best when presented with the slow tempo Isis sounding material in the longer tracks like A Looking In View and Acid Bubble, the latter being the best on the album by some way- it's just that the vocals sound very, very generic, for want of a better term. It's a shame, given that the instrumental passages and riffs work exceptionally well. If this album were instrumental and packed out a little more, it would be genuinely great. As it stands, it brings nothing new and just makes me want to go and listen to Tool instead, in spite of a few fantastic songs that you should listen to, if you're a fan of the genre.

Conrad Hughes