Alice in Chains
Jar of Flies

20/02/1994

It's 18:30 and I'm heading home on the 23, the bus that separates me from the city to the east.

I spent the afternoon shuttling between music stores in the center.

I'm only 15, with slightly confused ideas (but that's not a big deal at that age!), and wearing a green bomber jacket. With rock, I'm just starting, but after Nirvana, something happened; the hedonism at all costs and the glitz of the 80s has long been outlawed... now leading the way in the music business – and in fashion – are flannel shirts, nihilistic lyrics, and the Seattle sound.

I purchased Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains. Why? I liked the cover of the record, the 4 members play grunge which is very popular, and the store owner praised Dirt, the band's previous work... a sonic monolith, according to him! Why not listen “to someone who has worn down piles of needles”?! I finish dinner, look at myself in the mirror of the compact, and press play...

- “Rotten Apple”

- “Nutshell”

- “I Stay Away”

- “No Excuses”

- “Whale & Wasp”

- “Don’t Follow”

- “Swing on This”

So... the disc is not an lp because lps have at least 10-12 songs, but it's not an ep because eps generally have no more than 4...it's not an electric disc like the vast majority of rock albums, nor an acoustic work as in the best Unplugged tradition...

Well, then what is it, you might be asking? Simple, it's an electro-acoustic mini lp, but more than anything, and I can confirm this after 20 years, a work unique in its kind; a product that, suspended between mainstream and underground, reveals, in the chaos and compositional death throes of the end of the millennium, the most intimate side of the entire Hard & Heavy scene.

“Rotten Apple,” is a suffering and hypnotic ballad, the starting point of an intense and dramatic journey through the most hidden spaces of the human soul. But, the “Rotten Apple,” also preludes to one of the most beautiful pieces in the history of music...

“Nutshell,” the track that all, guitarists or not, would dream of writing at least once in their lives. Twilight and decadent as few, it is an unquestioning acceptance of defeat.

“If I can’t be my own, I’d feel better dead”

(se non posso essere me stesso, allora preferirei essere morto)

Disarming in its sincerity, it is the grim premonition of that irreparable but perhaps inevitable epilogue that, 10 years later, will shake the West Coast from its winter slumber.

“I Stay Away,” the most electric of the album, evokes the nuances of Dirt and with its slightly mischievous, slightly toxic progression it marks the halfway point of the entire chapter. Layne's voice roars back for a moment, and the concluding “i stay away” is worse than a scolding: authoritative and uncompromising, it's spine-chilling!

Then comes “No Excuses”... how many times have I tried to play this piece on my folk guitar! Immediate and no-frills, it’s still inimitable. The mood seems to change, timid glimmers are seen on the horizon... is it hope? Maybe not, it seems more like disillusion, the final realization and without excuses, after Dirt's tantrums, that there is no return from oblivion.

“Whale & Wasp” is an instrumental interlude, a cameo with Arabian overtones, revealing a refined taste and an obsessive search for melodic lines.

And finally comes “Don’t Follow” and it is the apotheosis... a distant harmonica draws new and suggestive parabolas – a last sunset – and a vintage Staley exhorts us with pure and contagious melancholy to “say goodbye and not follow him”... it's the end!

Only the 4:04 minutes of “Swing on This,” out of tune and out of place “an uninvited guest,” are left before the stop... the countdown has begun...

Jar of Flies, an apparently ordinary cassette, is one of those “proofs” that cannot leave anyone indifferent. Authentic and heartbreaking confession, it is somewhat like an urn preserving the memories, in my opinion, the last ones of a too fragile soul.

Judgment: there aren't many ways to describe the abyss! The most beautiful one-way ticket...

05/04/2002

Time’s up.

R.I.P. Layne, free from chains... and forever, in your place, Alice in Chains and into legend.