Jonathan Nazzaro ‘27
Guest Writer
If you ask anybody who knows me what is one thing I cannot live without, they will spit out an answer immediately: music. With this review being the beginning of my music reviewing experience, there is no better record to speak about than Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains. The 30-minute, 7-track 1994 EP has had not only immense effects on my creative taste but also on the way I see the world as a whole, sparking a personal reflection that I’m excited to share with you.
I have distinct memories of myself as a kid, hearing my older brother’s heavy metal music blasting through the wall between our bedrooms. At a younger age, I was not the biggest fan of hearing bands such as Electric Wizard and Bathory through all hours of the night, yet I do remember being excited at the prospect of finally hearing something I liked. Before I knew it, I listened to the first song of Jar of Flies, and I was hooked.
Hailing from Seattle, Washington, Alice in Chains is considered among the greatest bands of all time for their ability to stand out among the grunge hordes of the early to mid-nineties, along with groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and even Stone Temple Pilots. This recognition has earned the band over 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify and the vocal support to show for it.
Jar of Flies, the band’s third studio album (and second acoustic), is considered by many fans to be Alice in Chains’ best work. Amid internal turmoil between members and overarching drug abuse problems, the core members found themselves homeless. They eventually moved into their recording studio in Seattle and created the masterpiece that is Jar of Flies.
With a nearly 7-minute run time, “Rotten Apple” headlines the EP with a bold baseline and jumpy 4/4 time, signature to the credit of drummer Sean Kinney. Lead singer Layne Staley and lead guitarist Jerry Cantrell harmonize over an almost harmonica-sounding guitar, showcasing a unique blend of sounds. In the lyrics, Staley compares himself being tempted to use heroin to Adam and Eve being inclined to eat the apple in the Garden of Eden. With a biblical yet melancholy tone, Layne sets the tone for the rest of the EP magically.
The second track, titled “Nutshell,” is, in my opinion, the most emotion-inducing song ever written. In the opening lines, Layne sings, “We chase misprinted lies, We face the path of time.” The line confronts disinformation surrounding the band, but even more importantly, Layne’s anxiety about the lives of himself and his bandmates moving into the future. The insightful lyrics overlay another Mike Inez deep baseline and classic Cantrell melody, seamlessly setting the transition into the next track.
Track three, titled “I Stay Away” has a more upbeat musical tone to it while simultaneously holding onto the lyrical themes of drug abuse and depression. Staley speaks of feeling free for the first time in a long time, and does so in one of his strongest studio performances.
The EP’s fourth track and lead single, “No Excuses,” starts with one of the most beautiful yet complicated drum grooves ever made, followed by a campy acoustic rhythm guitar. The song was created as a form of therapy for the bandmates, as the lyrics have a particularly positive outlook on healthily dealing with addiction, as seen in the line, “You find me sittin’ by myself, No Excuses, Then I know,” where Layne admits that his addiction is nobody else’s fault but his own.
Despite being completely wordless, track five “Whale & Wasp” says all it needs to through its eerie and heavy atmospheric tone, setting up the next track on a pedestal.
“Don’t Follow,” the sixth track on Jar of Flies, is dominated by its persistent rising guitar and piercing harmonica melody. The song experiments with blues, mainly seen in its consistent rhyme patterns and growling chest-based vocals by Staley. The lyrics can be interpreted as one person with an addiction telling somebody not to follow down their footsteps into abuse; hence the title “Don’t Follow.”
The seventh and final track on Jar of Flies, “Swing on This,” picks up where “Don’t Follow” left off in its strong blues influence. With a hi-hat heavy drum groove and contrasting bass tab, the band experiments down the path of a full-on blues/swing song and unsurprisingly succeeds. Staley’s lyrics continue the story of “Don’t Follow” in a way that talks about the effect drug abuse has on a user’s family.
In conclusion, Jar of Flies is undoubtedly my favorite album/EP of all time, and it just so happens to be the one that opened my eyes to all kinds of music that I now love and can’t live without. Lyrics aside, as relevant and emotional as they are, Alice in Chains members displayed immense technical talent on their respective instruments, setting the standard for grunge and other genres. Jar of Flies is cemented as a monolith in music that represents the intersectionality between technicality and storytelling and, in some way, inspires my taste in all other music. Of course, any musician will tell you that their songs are about whatever the listeners want them to be about, and this abstract nature is what keeps me coming back to Jar of Flies – I can listen to it a hundred times over, and interpret it differently each time.
Featured image courtesy of The Paisano
Copy Edited by Annamaria DeCamp ’27
Web Edited by Zexuan Qu ’28
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