Dirt

Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell's close, sometimes unsettling harmonies give Dirt a sound that remains recognisable through its changes in pace. The guitar parts are heavy, but the vocal lines add another kind of tension, often moving together in ways that feel uneasy rather than reassuring.

“Would?” builds from a strong bass figure, while “Rooster” unfolds more gradually. Elsewhere the writing faces addiction and its consequences directly. The album's force comes from that combination of physical weight and exposure, with little distance between the sound and its subject matter.