Anal Alice Argument

Enough bullshit. Here are the facts:

1)Alice in Chains, after a 14 year hiatus, is releasing their new album Black Gives Way to Blue on September 29th.

2)Alice's previous lead singer, Layne Staley, was found dead in his Seattle condominium on April 19, 2002.

3)Alice will be featuring a new lead singer (William DuVall) on their new album. They have already released two singles via their website, A Looking In View and Check My Brain. Both tracks are unequivocally awesome and will melt your face the second you hear them.

Everyone is aware to the aforementioned facts. That's why they're facts, there's no arguing them. Everyone is waiting for the album and probably would murder kittens to get it early. I know I've got my flannel shirts and Doc Martens ready like it's 1995. I even had all my jeans stonewashed.

Here's where the BS starts. You generally hear this piece of BS from two camps, the metal heads and the hippies.

Metal heads: Heard the new Alice single? Bro sounds just like Layne! Aww, man you can't even tell the two apart!!

Hippies: Hey man, that new lead singer for Alice sounds just like Layne Staley, man. Yeah, it's like he was, like, reincarnated or something. It's totally trippy (cough cough cough)!

You even hear a radio DJ say it from time to time, although most of them are wise enough not to. Let me clue all you assholes in on something.

Alice in Chains uses a technique known as vocal harmony in most of their music. Vocal harmony occurs when two vocalists sing various parts of the song together in the same tune. Much of their old stuff contained vocal harmony, and both of the singles released for the upcoming album feature extensive vocal harmony.

What does this mean? It means you're all retarded and don't realize that half of this vocal harmony has always been and will continue to be the musical genius and guitar god Jerry Cantrell. What used to be Layne Staley is now William DuVall. With half of the equation being the same as it has always been, of course it's going to sound pretty similar. In the parts of the song where DuVall is singing alone, it's pretty clear to me that he sounds nothing like Layne Staley. Is he good? Yes. Are the songs good? Obviously. Is William DuVall reincarnated Layne Staley? Don't make me laugh. Maybe if I was taking constant bong rips throughout the song (hippies) or headbanging (metal heads) I wouldn't be able to discern a difference. Please, pull your heads out.

We can all agree that the new album is going to be divine. Let's settle for that.