Illegal Foreign Object

Jerry Cantrell has done four lifetimes worth of living since he became a household name to those of us who sat on our bedroom floor with our horns raised skyward, banging our heads as “Man In The Box” blasted through the stereo speakers. Back then, he split our faces in half en route to staking Alice In Chains’ claim to a swath of the rock and roll landscape. Now, he seems content with his place in the world.

Maybe it’s projection, but I hear struggles with time, mortality, and loss interspersed throughout the hauntingly beautiful Brighten. The lyrics “I wanna believe I’ll never drown/Can ascend/No release or reprieve to be found” stick to me like ticks on a farm dog. I know how much I mourn in my life, and if my previous statement about Jerry cramming a ton of living into one existence holds any water, multiplying the mourning by four strikes me as downright impossible. His narrow shoulders belie his ability to haul the yoke up the fuckin’ hill.

Just. Keep. Going.

Brighten also gives me haggard traveling gunfighter vibes. I don’t know why it conjures such an image, but several tracks on the album sound like you’re dropping a phonograph needle on top of the color sepia. It’s music for an exhausted motherfucker with two bullets left in his six-shooter. I’m damn near done (but I’m not done yet).

The darkness and heavy-heartedness that are very much signatures of Alice in Chains are present and accounted for on Brighten, but there’s something new that I’ve never experienced in Jerry Cantrell’s songwriting: hope. Perhaps it has always been there, and I’ve been unable to tap into it until now, but it walloped me right over the head on this album. Despite lyrical nods to loss, broken hearts, depression, mental health, and despair, Jerry never spirals. He’s gotten hold of the comet’s tail and he ain’t lettin’ the sumbitch go just yet. 

Cantrell sounds positively optimistic on “Prism Of Doubt” when singing, “I can’t believe how far we’ve come/Lighting a street like a midnight sun/Falling or flying, gonna keep trying/Just wanna wake up another day”. 

It’s a reassuring lyric — things just might be okay (despite them being fucked).

I’ve needed to cry for about a week. Life has gotten a little heavy recently — I’ve been in a hole. I’m climbing out, but it is deep, muddy, and tiresome work. Still, the climb continues. I work hard at not absorbing the problems of others. Sometimes, I fail miserably in this endeavor. I am, however, happy to report that I write this awash in rivers of freeing, healing tears. Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”. Brighten has found its way back onto my shores at the perfect time.

Track List:

1. Atone 10/10
2. Brighten 10/10
3. Prism Of Doubt 10/10
4. Black Hearts And Evil Done 9/10
5. Siren Song 10/10
6. Had To Know 9/10
7. Nobody Breaks You 10/10
8. Dismembered 9/10
9. Goodbye 10/10

Grade: 97