Black Gives Way to Blue
The bend in the guitar riff on Check My Brain is a small detail with a big job. It makes the song sound familiar and slightly seasick at once. Black Gives Way to Blue understands that Alice in Chains' identity depends on those uncomfortable little movements as much as sheer weight.
Released in 2009, the album introduced William DuVall to the band's studio records. His voice joins Jerry Cantrell's without making every song a demonstration of the changed lineup. The harmonies belong inside the arrangements, and the writing gives them something substantial to do. All Secrets Known establishes that approach slowly, letting the guitars gather force around a melody that sounds measured rather than defeated.
Last of My Kind gives DuVall a more exposed position and a harder attack. It is an effective contrast to the tightly blended voices elsewhere. Your Decision makes an equally useful change through acoustic guitar and a chorus that reaches out without losing the band's uneasy tone. The album can be welcoming even when the emotional weather remains poor.
A Looking in View and Acid Bubble explore the heavier side at greater length. Their shifts in pressure make a convincing case for allowing these songs space, especially when a new guitar passage changes the direction of the arrangement. The slower tread does become familiar across the record, though. A few of the shorter songs are solid additions rather than essential ones, and the most distinctive riffs carry a disproportionate share of the impact.
The title track closes with welcome directness. Cantrell's tribute to Layne Staley uses piano, including Elton John's contribution, without turning grief into a grand production number. Its brevity helps: the song says what it needs to and leaves the feeling unresolved.
Black Gives Way to Blue works because it gives the band's established sound a practical purpose. The heavy songs have conviction, the quieter ones have clear melodies, and the voices find a convincing relationship. That makes the album satisfying on musical terms long after its difficult circumstances have been explained.
