Red Mosquito

VinylGuy wrote:

Bammer wrote:It's obviously awesome because everything AIC does is awesome.

And after all these years I finally got the full Boggy Depot album on iTunes and it's.... Awesome.

full Boggy Depot?

You never go full Boggy Depot!

I still don't have the full Degradation Trip.

Degradation Trip is a decent album. The double-disc release is also decent, but you can cut the filler to make a really good single-disc album.

yeah, i really like DT but pretty much every songs needs an edit...too long.

verb_to_trust wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:

Bammer wrote:It's obviously awesome because everything AIC does is awesome.

And after all these years I finally got the full Boggy Depot album on iTunes and it's.... Awesome.

full Boggy Depot?

You never go full Boggy Depot!

Uh oh is that bad?

Man, self titled is such a good album, but the mood is so dark, its difficult to listen to it...but the music, is so different from Facelift or Dirt....they really were going to a new path here.
The Nothing Song has that weird almost jazzy element to it that i love, with Sean's loose drums and those weird guitars kinda like the beginning of Frogs...its almost a different band.

Layne is the mvp here.

VinylGuy wrote:Man, self titled is such a good album, but the mood is so dark, its difficult to listen to it...but the music, is so different from Facelift or Dirt....they really were going to a new path here.
The Nothing Song has that weird almost jazzy element to it that i love, with Sean's loose drums and those weird guitars kinda like the beginning of Frogs...its almost a different band.

Layne is the mvp here.

I like S/T more than all the other AIC releases put together.

matt reeder wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:Man, self titled is such a good album, but the mood is so dark, its difficult to listen to it...but the music, is so different from Facelift or Dirt....they really were going to a new path here.
The Nothing Song has that weird almost jazzy element to it that i love, with Sean's loose drums and those weird guitars kinda like the beginning of Frogs...its almost a different band.

Layne is the mvp here.

I like S/T more than all the other AIC releases put together.

I do too with the exception of Jar Of Flies. Thats a wonderful ep as well.

For some reason I started to listen Degradation Trip after checking this thread. It's been well over ten years since I've heard some of these songs. Listening to this takes me to dark places - definitely not good for my state of mind right now, and yet I can't seem to be able to stop listening to this.

Cantrell's solo stuff doesn't really do it for me -- without Layne, he just has such a bland, middle-of-the-road voice. He needed Staley to give that really heavy, dissonant stuff the right touch of eccentricity.

Kevin Davis wrote:Cantrell's solo stuff doesn't really do it for me -- without Layne, he just has such a bland, middle-of-the-road voice. He needed Staley to give that really heavy, dissonant stuff the right touch of eccentricity.

He has a couple of interesting solo songs. But, yes, ultimately, I agree.

Kevin Davis wrote:Cantrell's solo stuff doesn't really do it for me -- without Layne, he just has such a bland, middle-of-the-road voice. He needed Staley to give that really heavy, dissonant stuff the right touch of eccentricity.

You're not wrong, but I love his solo stuff.

I liked a few songs on "Boggy Depot" back when it came out, but haven't had the urge to listen to them in well over ten years. I thought "Degradation Trip" was pretty weak.

I love Boggy Depot. Its the continuation from the songs he did on Self Titled. Its such a cool album.

Degradation Trip is too sludgy and heavy but its main problem is Jerry needed to do shorter versions. Everything else is cool too, specially the quieter numbers.

Oh, and his band there is just great.

Layne's voice is essentially what pulled me into the "grunge" scene.

Listened to a few Facelift songs over the last few days. I'm enjoying it. It sounds very early 90's but really does get the "grunge" thing right. It's basically just heavy metal without the glam, and Layne, which really makes it. His voice is cool.

I heard AIC's making a new album, possibly this year?

Im throwing myself into AIC's discography recently.

Im so bad at listening to albums...I just hear the songs I know and then I hear nothing but mush for the rest of it. Im not sure how much of that is on AIC and how much is on me. Its so constant across bands I think its on me though.

So at first I mostly enjoy the albums I know more songs from <_<

The songs I know:

Facelift: Man in the Box
Sap: Brother, Got Me Wrong
Dirt: Them Bones, Down in a Hole, Rooster, Angry Chair, Would?
Jar of Flies: Nutshell, I stay Away, No Excuses, Don't Follow
Alice in CHains: Heaven Beside You, Over Now

So judging by that I like Dirt and Jar of Flies the best lol.

I feel like their albums so far start AMAZINGLY. We Die Young -> Man in the Box was an AMAZING album opener. So was Them Bones -> Dam That River. Like ten out of ten for album openers.

Then the third song is also good and memorable on both albums.

And then things kinda descend. It definitely seems they have majorly front loaded albums.

Dirt seems to be better even beyond the hits, because the songs that are there make more impression on me...Sickman, Rain When I Die, Dam That River, and Dirt I didn't know...but they stuck out to me. While on Facelift, We Die Young and Sea of Sorrow were really good and stuck out to me...and then I look at tracks 4-12 and I can't remember one thing about any one of them, and Im on like my fourth time through the album.

Also Im kinda starting to think this might be a band best appreciated through their greatest hits. They have a ton of amazing songs (all the ones I know) but I dunno if their deeper tracks add much more so far. And if you group their greatest hits together you get a better blend of loud and soft, rather than 3 loud albums, and 2 soft Eps

"Facelift" definitely starts off strong and then takes a nosedive. It's pretty indisputably their weakest album, a kind of grotesque grunge-glam Frankenstein's monster that never really finds its sweet spot.

"Dirt" is pretty much AIC 101 -- I won't say I love every track, but this record is their essence, imitated by dozens, and probably contains more immediately satisfying songs than any other record they made.

The self-titled album is a dense, complex work that repays attentive listening -- the harmonies in particular, both between Staley and Cantrell and between the vocal melodies and chords, are among the most innovative and unusual I've ever heard, a high watermark for music theory within the grunge niche.

Both EP's are essential, not a bad song on either one.

All that said, I don't necessarily disagree that a good 20 song or so comp would pretty much serve my AIC needs from here on out. Definitely not a hits-only comp, though.