It’s been quite a long break from recording for Alice in Chains, but there’s always a silver lining in every cloud, in this case the second Jerry Cantrell album during that time. And if the beautiful and journey-inspiring ‘Brighten’ that came out in 2021 contained mostly softer compositions, ‘I Want Blood’ is pretty close in terms of style to the latest AIC record.
Cantrell is not only the last survivor of a bygone scene and era, he’s been in constant top-notch form throughout the 21st century, which is something that very few of his peers can claim about themselves. On ‘I Want Blood’, he finds new ways to present the characteristics that’ve made him so unique: the vocal harmonies on ‘Off the Rails’, the otherworldly aura of ‘Held your Tongue’, the addictive melancholy of ‘It Comes’. All the songs… smell of rain, just the way we want them to, and all of them have something, a melody, an arrangement, a riff, a solo (there are many to be found here for Jerry’s standards) that will manage to stay engraved on your mind. Produced by Joe Barresi, sprinkled with more flavor thanks to some great friends – Robert Trujillo, Duff McKagan, Mike Bordin – ‘I Want Blood’ ticks all the boxes and should be a given when the time comes to write your lists with the best releases of the year.
