Jerry Cantrell
Degradation Trip

THE REVIEW

Dear Jerry, 

I have always been a fan of yours since the days of Alice in Chains. I fell in love with "Dirt", the wonderful vocal harmonies you and the late Layne knew how to weave into that unique and morbid sound tapestry, enriched by your classy guitar work: special both when you plunged the blade with surgical and intense riffs, and when you made the air rarefied with soft chords. I'd like to fly but my wings have been so denied.

Once it was clear that Alice in Chains would not come back, I followed your solo career with enthusiasm, in search of those unforgettable sensations. I appreciated both "Boggy Depot" and "Degradation Trip" a lot, especially the latter. Perhaps because I was moved by its release just a few months after Layne's sad passing, powerful tracks like "Castaway" or "Hellbound" and melancholic ballads in the style of Jar of Flies like "Solitude" or the funereal "Gone" took up a large space in my playlist that summer.

I know your solo albums weren't very successful, and I believe that must have saddened you a lot. What can you do, my old friend: mala tempora currunt. But let me give you some advice, as an old friend. Your place in rock history was secured with Alice in Chains, and I believe the royalties from those albums aren't bad either. Can you explain who made you reform the band without your dear friend Layne? Wasn't the reunion for a few concerts enough: now I read that you will record a new Unplugged (as in: let's scrape the bottom of the barrel...) and that - hear hear - you'll try to produce new material too! Especially you who in this album sang "Chalking up my dead friends / and loved ones long gone"..... I beg you Jerry: stop this crazy ride while you still can. Here they come to snuff the Rooster....