Various - Alice in Chains: Dirt (Redux)

Magnetic Eye's Redux series hands a classic album to the doom and stoner underground and lets them take it apart. For this volume they chose Dirt, Alice in Chains' 1992 descent into addiction and inner rot, and arguably the grunge record with the most direct bloodline to modern sludge in the first place. The tribute is less a costume than a family reunion.

Thou open with "Them Bones" and set the terms immediately, replacing Layne Staley's harmonies with something closer to a scream from inside a collapsing building. Khemmis bring stately doom to "Down in a Hole," Howling Giant push "Rooster" somewhere psychedelic, -(16)- drag "Hate to Feel" through the mud, and The Otolith, featuring former members of SubRosa, close things out with a "Would?" that trades the original's dread for strings and open space. Low Flying Hawks, High Priest, These Beasts, Forming the Void, Somnuri, Backwoods Payback, Black Electric, and Vokonis fill out the roster.

Covered end to end by thirteen different bands, Dirt turns out to be far sturdier than reverence would suggest. The songs take the abuse and hand back something new, which is the entire point of the exercise.

This edition spans two LPs in a glossy gatefold jacket, with cover art by Adam Burke of Nightjar Illustration. Essential for anyone who ever traced the line from Seattle down into the swamp.