12 No-Skip Hard Rock Albums

Hailing from Seattle, Washington, Alice in Chains has been held in the same vein as grunge bands from the time. However, having a harder edge to them, AIC has always considered themselves more a Hard Rock band.

Their debut album, Facelift, was released in the summer of 1990 and went on to sell over 2,000,000 units domestically. While the band are more well known for their sophomore release, Dirt, featuring classics such as Them Bones and Rooster, their first outing contains no blemishes.

The album’s first-half kicks off with We Die Young, a chunky track which introduces the enigmatic vocals of singer, Layne Staley, who was making a prophecy in the album’s introduction.

Signature track, Man in the Box, follows and encapsulates the range of Staley’s vocal stylings in a slow and steady boom.

After Sea of Sorrow, Bleed the Freak, I Can’t Remember, and Love, Hate, Love continue the band's exploration into the morose, with the latter feeling particularly dark with Staley crying out, ‘lost inside my sick head.’ The band captures the feeling of despair felt by the tortured and the addicted.

Track 7 starts of the second half of the album with a sludgy chug in It Ain’t Like That. This is such a cool track with an overstated feeling of badassery. Eighties Rock celebrated vices, whereas Alice details the fall.

Ending with Real Thing, the complete is a journey through anger, regret, and ends with a determined, fatalistic war cry to ‘another hill.’