Rainier Fog – out now

Their first album in five years, Rainier Fog is the group’s sixth full-length release. For its recording, the band worked between Studio X in Seattle (the same studio where they recorded their 1995 Alice In Chains album), Henson Recording Studios in LA and producer Nick Raskulinecz’s studio in Nashville, who also oversaw their last two albums. The new LP was engineered by Paul Figueroa and mixed by Joe Barresi, who is best known for his work with bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Tool.

Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell explained that the album is a revisiting of the group’s Seattle origins. The title track, a reference to Mount Rainier in Seattle, is “a little homage to all of that: where we come from, who we are, all of the triumphs, all of the tragedies, lives lived”.

Along with bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney, Alice In Chains pioneered the Seattle grunge sound in the 1990s. The scene is marred with tragedy, however, including the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell and the band’s own Layne Staley. “It’s a small town and we all knew each other. It means the world to me that I was able to spend time with the guy to create what we all created in the same town.” Cantrell explained. “It gets really difficult to be the guy that has to talk about your dead friends all the time… I miss the hell out of all of them.”

See the tracklist below:

01. The One You Know
02. Rainier Fog
03. Red Giant
04. Fly
05. Drone
06. Deaf Ears Blind Eyes
07. Maybe
08. So Far Under
09. Never Fade
10. All I Am

Ahead of the album’s release, the group released two tracks as singles. The lead single, ‘The One You Know’, was inspired by David Bowie’s 1975 track, ‘Fame’. “It was around the time that Bowie died, and he must have been in my head a little bit,” Cantrell said. “It doesn’t sound anything like the riff to ‘Fame,’ but that kind of strut crept in there a little bit – the metal version of that feel.”

The follow-up single, ‘So Far Under’, was written by William DuVall, who joined the group following Staley’s overdose death in 2002. Powered by a modally-tinged metal riff, the track soon explodes into a roaring lead guitar solo, also played by DuVall.