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You may recall my post a couple weeks back on Mad Season. I found a review suggesting that they sounded exactly as you’d expect knowing that Layne Staley (Alice in Chains) was the singer, and I explicitly stated this was false. That doesn’t mean a side-project can’t sound very similar to its predecessor and still be great. Jerry Cantrell also started a side-project from Alice in Chains… and it is just as you’d expect.

Jerry Cantrell released two solo albums: Boggy Depot (1998) and Degradation Trip (2002). I hadn’t completely given up on the radio when Boggy Depot was released, and I recall Cut You In being an over-played single… so over-played that I heard it several times on the radio without ever hearing who played it. I guess it had been played so much at that point that I was supposed to know who it was. Moral of the story, I didn’t realize it was Jerry Cantrell until about 5 minutes ago. Meanwhile, I’ve had Degradation Trip almost as long as it’s been out, and I still listen to it on a semi-regular basis.

Degradation Trip seems like a natural progression from Alice in Chains with less focus on the lead guitar, surprisingly… given Jerry Cantrell’s role in Alice in Chains. After giving Boggy Depot a quick listen, I can tell you that Degradation Trip is a huge leap for Jerry Cantrell, and it shows that music can be heavier and darker without just playing louder and cranking up the distortion on your guitar to 11. By this release, Jerry really grasped the role of being the sole singer and song-writer for a group. The quote below sums it up better than I could.

“In ‘98, I locked myself in my house, went out of my mind and wrote 25 songs,” says the then-fully-bearded Cantrell. “I rarely bathed during that period of writing, I sent out for food, I didn’t really venture out of my house in three or four months. It was a hell of an experience. The album is an overview of birth to now. That’s all,” he grins, though the visceral and haunting songs, by turns soaring and raw, do reflect that often-naked and sometimes-grim truth. “Boggy Depot [his 1998 solo bow] is like Kindergarten compared to this,” he furthers. “The massive sonic growth from Boggy Depot to Degradation Trip is comparable to the difference between our work in the Alice In Chains albums Facelift to Dirt, which was also a tremendous leap.”
     - Official Jerry Cantrell Bio (Roadrunner Records)

That explains why this album is so dark and dirty. This album’s purpose is clearly to convey emotion rather than to entertain or just pass the time. Of all the Alice in Chains albums and Jerry Cantrell’s two releases, Degradation Trip is my second favorite. The first being Alice in Chains’ self-titled album, which is honestly my favorite grunge album… ever. So, if you’re a fan of Alice in Chains and you don’t have Jerry Cantrell’s Degradation Trip for some reason… you know what needs to happen.

Jerry Cantrell