THE DEVIL PUT DINOSAURS HERE
Alice In Chains
(Universal)
Twenty five plus years on and, in musical terms, Alice In Chains are getting to be dinosaurs.
That they’ve survived this long, even after the death of core members Layne Staley and Mike Starr is partly because they are great riff merchants and are a lot closer to being a heavy metal band than their grunge roots might suggest.
Their music has become a lot more sanitised where songs as Hollow and Stone fly the mainstream flag despite surfing big waves of sound.
The title track – with its curious line “Jesus don’t like a queer/ the devil put dinosaurs here/ no problem with faith just fear – and Phantom, another song about misperceptions, uncoil like deadly snakes while Scalpel shows Alice In Chains are capable of
