Alice In Chains / Dirt (2LP)

Dirt is not just Alice In Chains� masterpiece; it is the darkest, most unflinching document ever released by a major-label rock band in the 1990s. Recorded in the spring and summer of 1992 at Eldorado and One on One Studios in Los Angeles while Layne Staley was actively in the grip of heroin addiction, the album is a 57-minute descent into chemical hell, self-loathing, betrayal, war trauma, and death wish, all wrapped in some of the heaviest, most beautiful riffs ever committed to tape. There are no love songs here�only autopsy reports sung in four-part harmony.