Facelift Review

There’s a part of me—just a part—that wants to proclaim Facelift as better than Dirt. It’s the only Staley-era Alice in Chains album that could be described as “fun.” It lacks the serious themes of self-destruction that made Dirt grab everyone’s attention. The lyrics still attempt to be dark, but they’re simultaneously immature and tongue-in-cheek. You can just imagine the band giggling to themselves as they wrote some of these lines.

Thankfully, the band still sonically pretends that they’re serious through their aggressively loud performances that initially shook the surface of rock and made glam metal look like kids’ stuff. No more would mainstream rock consist of bands over their mid-twenties. Facelift was one of the starting markers of a new, zealous teenage revolution that ultimately faded as fast as it arrived.

But I’m going overboard here. Facelift never digs itself too deep like Dirt is capable of, and it’s at least a less exhausting listen because of it. Facelift brings you up; Dirt brings you down. And some days, I’d rather be up.