The overlooked Alice in Chains song Jerry Cantrell calls “brilliant”
When looking at some of the best material in Alice in Chains‘ discography, there’s an odd sense of detachment that comes with Tripod. Why is it usually so far down on ranking lists? Is it because Facelift and Dirt set the bar so high that anything in place of a third album was always going to falter?
In many ways, though, it’s best explained like this: this was a completely different Alice in Chains at this particular juncture. Although much of the context around making the third record is usually reduced to the same overused choice of words (dark, serious, brooding, and so on), the material was like that because it genuinely was one of their darkest periods, mainly due to Layne Staley’s addiction.
While this could be misconstrued into a tale of resilience, and in many ways, that’s exactly what it was, it’s hard to ignore how much it also feels like a band very much at the end of their tether, with problems that became ignored or sidelined as a means of dragging themselves to the end before it all erupted into irreparable fragments. This came across in the music, too, which is probably why, for many, it barely touches the sides of the standards set by the previous two.
For instance, some of the songs, like ‘Sludge Factory’, ‘Over Now’, and ‘Head Creeps’, feel like they run a little long, with a subdued repetitiveness throughout that’s less about grunge innovation and more like a band that seemed lacking in direction. There’s no doubting the familiar charm in the intricacy of some of the arrangements and how many seem to have a direct line to a specific emotion – a powerful feat Alice in Chains have always excelled at – but it also feels a little too much in certain places.
One that stands out, though, is ‘God Am’, though perhaps its excellence became massively overshadowed not just by the other tracks, but the record’s tainted atmosphere in a general sense. This is an opinion Jerry Cantrell also shared: “It’s one I think could’ve gone somewhere and we never really got to it on record. I always wish we’d done a video to that and released it as a single because I think it’s a brilliant song,” he wrote in the liner notes.
Aside from the disappointment of having the whole record become subject to mixed reviews because of its own controversial nature, Cantrell remains proud of it, despite how difficult it was bringing it all together. In fact, he said that the whole attitude of the record was set early on, specifically in the first lyric on the first track, ‘Grind’, spitting the words like a warning: “In the darkest hole, you’d be well advised / Not to plan my funeral ‘fore the body dies.”
In 1996, Cantrell told Rolling Stone that the record holds a firm place in his heart, despite the difficulties that came with it and everything others went through, specifically Staley, whose work on the album remains some of his best yet, even in the throes of addiction. “It was often depressing, and getting it done felt like pulling hair out, but it was the fucking coolest thing, and I’m glad to have gone through it,” Cantrell said. “I will cherish the memory forever.”
While some accuse the self-titled album of being the straw that broke the camel’s back, it feels more fitting to see it as the swan song to a particular chapter, a final curtain call on a version of Alice in Chains that was working tirelessly to keep a firm grasp on everything that cemented their position as grunge leaders and musicians who would never, not for one moment, give up without a fight.
As Cantrell put it: “It’s like, ‘Don’t fucking count me out mother fucker until I’m out ‘coz I’ll get up and kick your ass when you’re least expecting it.’”
