Dirt＜完全生産限定盤/Yellow Vinyl＞

発売30周年記念! アリス・イン・チェインズ 1992年発売の2ndアルバム『Dirt』を最新リマスター音源のアナログ盤で発売(イエロー・ヴァイナル)

シアトル出身のオルタナティヴ・ロックバンド=アリス・イン・チェインズの2ndアルバム『Dirt』を、最新リマスター音源のアナログ盤で発売。2枚組のアナログ盤としては初めての発売となる。1992年9月29日に発売され、今年で発売30周年を迎えるアルバム『Dirt』は、発売当時には第35回グラミー賞の最優秀ハード・ロック・パフォーマンス賞にノミネートされ、発売から30年を経た今年新たにRIAAより5度目のプラチナディスクに認定される等、時代を超えた名盤となっている。彼らの代表曲である「Would?」「Down In A Hole」「Them Bones」「Rooster」「Angry Chair」などを含む全13曲を収録。
オリジナルメンバーである、Jerry Cantrell (guitar, vocals), Sean Kinney (drums), Mike Starr (bass)、Layne Staley (lead vocals)の4名が揃った最後のアルバムとなった。

Dirt is Alice in Chains' major artistic statement and the closest they ever came to recording a flat-out masterpiece. It's a primal, sickening howl from the depths of Layne Staley's heroin addiction, and one of the most harrowing concept albums ever recorded. Not every song on Dirt is explicitly about heroin, but Jerry Cantrell's solo-written contributions (nearly half the album) effectively maintain the thematic coherence -- nearly every song is imbued with the morbidity, self-disgust, and/or resignation of a self-aware yet powerless addict. Cantrell's technically limited but inventive guitar work is by turns explosive, textured, and queasily disorienting, keeping the listener off balance with atonal riffs and off-kilter time signatures. Staley's stark confessional lyrics are similarly effective, and consistently miserable. Sometimes he's just numb and apathetic, totally desensitized to the outside world; sometimes his self-justifications betray a shockingly casual amorality; his moments of self-recognition are permeated by despair and suicidal self-loathing. Even given its subject matter, Dirt is monstrously bleak, closely resembling the cracked, haunted landscape of its cover art. The album holds out little hope for its protagonists (aside from the much-needed survival story of "Rooster," a tribute to Cantrell's Vietnam-vet father), but in the end, it's redeemed by the honesty of its self-revelation and the sharp focus of its music. [Some versions of Dirt feature "Down in a Hole" as the next-to-last track rather than the fourth.] ~ Steve Huey