Band:	Alice In Chains
Album:	Facelift
Style:	Grunge, Heavy metal
Release date:	August 1990

01. We Die Young
02. Man In The Box
03. Sea Of Sorrow
04. Bleed The Freak
05. I Can't Remember
06. Love, Hate, Love
07. It Ain't Like That
08. Sunshine
09. Put You Down
10. Confusion
11. I Know Somethin (Bout You)
12. Real Thing

Plastic fantastic.

It's hard to believe that Facelift is nearing its 30th anniversary, three decades removed from when Alice In Chains made their big mark on music as a whole and played a pivotal part in changing the cultural zeitgeist in both metal and beyond. How does Facelift look now the dust has long settled and what was once a breath of fresh air is now a distant memory?

If Facelift was ground-breaking at the time, especially in the midst of thrash and glam that were fast reaching critical mass, you can still measure the aftershocks on the Richter scale today. The tremors were the pulse of genres that have been and come in the meantime, with tracks like "Confusion" sounding like a blueprint for Korn and many a nu metal band that were subsequently spawned. The focus on the raw and negative emotion of the human psyche is now so commonplace it is standard fare for much of metal; hell, Billie Eillish is a continuation down this path and she's considered a mainstream darling.

Alice In Chains focus on slow and disparate rhythms while submerging each track in a sullen atmosphere that permeates every corner the album, giving the whole an undercurrent of menace and youthful loathing. The band create a sonic background of power and pain with Staley painfully ruing aloud. Don't be fooled though, while this sounds like a very flat and confined description of the band's sound, they add many different dimensions and colours that make what seems very narrow into a wide and broad soundscape. From the raw and razor sharp "We Die Young" and "Put You Down" to the more groovy "I Know Somethin (Bout You)" and the slow dirgy "Love, Hate, Love", each track is imbued with a heavy and driven sound that gives the album a sense of continuity, even though it may paint with different brushes.

Kinney's drumming is a solid but oft overlooked aspect of the band; his ability to inject energy into the tracks without necessitating a jump in tempo adds to the weight of this album. Little fills and rolls are produced at moments you least expect it ("It Ain't Like That") to punctuate the track and remind the listener Alice In Chains are still in the metal circles, at least on the periphery. Cantrell and Starr set the mood and put flesh on the bones, between them they create an album that drops the tempo but not the intensity ("Sunshine", "Man In The Box"). Of course, Staley (R.I.P.) is the cherry on top of all this; his voice is the perfect blend of power and emotion, able to breathe life into the songs the band craft and make them sound relatable.

The production on Facelift has stood the test of time well, it doesn't sound greatly dated and could hold its own against more modern releases. Jerden balances everything well, each element is layered perfectly, allowing the listener to switch focus between each part separately should they want or to stand back and take it all in as a whole. The best example of this is "Love, Hate, Love", where you can flit between each instrument with ease should you want, hear the little guitar riff in the background that adds but doesn't push itself on the listener or take the song as a solid whole. This sonic clarity does not detract or lessen the impact of the band's downtuned and broody sound; it is probably because it is so steeped in this broodiness that the album sounds timeless, evoking an emotional response as relevant then as it is now.

Looking back, it's easy to trace the path taken since Facelift announced Alice In Chains' arrival on the big stages; while it was a group effort with other grunge bands at the time, the band were always able to carve out their own niche yet sound a part of the movement. For a debut album, this has to be one of the strongest in a long time, sounding very much the finished product just as they'd started.