Released: August 24, 2018
Going home can turn a band into its own tribute act. For Alice in Chains, returning to Seattle also meant walking back into the studio where its 1995 self-titled album had been recorded. Former members Layne Staley and Mike Starr were gone. So were other familiar faces from the city’s music scene. Rainier Fog raises a fair question: can a band revisit the place that shaped it without getting trapped inside its history?
Released August 24, 2018, through BMG, Rainier Fog was the third Alice in Chains studio album featuring William DuVall alongside Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez, and Sean Kinney. Producer Nick Raskulinecz and engineer Paul Figueroa returned, with Joe Barresi handling the mix. Sessions included Seattle’s Studio X, formerly Bad Animals, alongside additional work in Tennessee and Los Angeles.
Cantrell has played down the idea that recording in Seattle was some calculated attempt to reconnect with the past. For DuVall, however, the room brought different questions. Here was a singer and guitarist working inside a space tied to a version of the band he never belonged to, while helping shape the version standing there now.
“The One You Know” makes that tension audible immediately. Its guitar riff jabs against the groove with a bright, almost metallic edge, while Kinney’s drums give the arrangement a deliberate sideways shuffle. Cantrell and DuVall pull their voices together above the scrape of the guitars, preserving the band’s familiar harmonies without softening the song’s harsher angles.
The title track approaches its history differently. The guitar line moves quickly; Inez holds the low end steady, and Kinney keeps the beat open enough for the vocals to breathe. Lyrics about people who are no longer around hang over a song that refuses to stand still. There is grief in it, but also the sound of four musicians still working through what that shared history means.
DuVall’s role becomes harder to dismiss on “So Far Under.” He wrote the song, played the guitar solo, and built it around a bent-note riff that could easily be mistaken for Cantrell’s work. The notes sag, twist, and drop against the rhythm section, creating the kind of ugly, distinctive movement that has always been part of the band’s sound. Hearing DuVall write that language himself says more about his place in Alice in Chains than any argument over whether he resembles Staley.
“Drone” brings another piece of Seattle into the room. Former Queensrÿche guitarist Chris DeGarmo plays the acoustic passage before the solo, layering two six-string performances to create the shimmer of a 12-string. Cantrell’s electric guitar rises over the top before the arrangement sinks back into its grinding central riff. Raskulinecz also added the ragged sound of a cigar-box amplifier he bought at Pike Place Market. The hometown connection shows up in the actual recording, right down to the equipment.
“Never Fade” makes the relationship between Cantrell and DuVall even clearer. Cantrell had written the chorus, but DuVall developed the verses and pre-chorus during a late-night session at Studio X. His voice pushes the song ahead before Cantrell takes over the refrain, turning the arrangement into a conversation between the two singers. DuVall has connected that writing session to thoughts about Staley and Chris Cornell, giving the song’s sense of loss a clear connection to the room where it was written.
Elsewhere, “Fly” opens up around a Southern-tinged guitar solo, while “Maybe” gives the harmonies more space to move against its softer arrangement. “All I Am” stretches that unease across a slower final track, with the guitars and vocals hanging in the open instead of rushing toward a tidy resolution.
So, can Alice in Chains return to its past without getting stuck there? Rainier Fog answers that question through the people making the record. DuVall writes the bent riff, DeGarmo adds the acoustic detail, and Cantrell, Inez, and Kinney return to a room they already know. The history never disappears. It just belongs to the band standing there now.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia.
Artist information and music courtesy of the band.
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