Degradation Trip

1	Psychotic Break 4:09
2	Bargain Basement Howard Hughes 5:38
3	Anger Rising 6:14
4	Angel Eyes 4:44
5	Solitude 4:00
6	Mother's Spinning in Her Grave (Glass Dick Jones) 3:53
7	Hellbound 6:46
8	Give It a Name 4:01
9	Castaway 4:59
10	She Was My Girl 3:59
11	Chemical Tribe 6:35
12	Spiderbite 6:38
13	Locked On 5:37
14	Gone 5:08

Barnes & Noble

His ferocious guitar riffing in Alice in Chains all but defined the darker end of grunge, and he's long since proved his ability to send chills down the spine and rattle the ribcage. But on this sprawling 14-song solo set, Jerry Cantrell establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with on just about every front, penning purposefully ugly, powerful tunes, and delivering them with wizened emotion. As he did in AiC, Cantrell focuses on the seamier side of life and refuses to blink: "Mother's Spinning in Her Grave (Glass Dick Jones)" creeps along with ache and angst, detailing crack addict woes with wooze and weariness. Likewise, "Psychotic Break," which was actually written and recorded before the death by overdose of former bandmate Layne Staley, bemoans a landscape of death and near-death. Cantrell spikes these songs with inexorably molten riffage that pounds forward, bulldozer-style. He shifts up a gear or two on "Anger Waiting," a dynamic, stop-start tune that fuses punk aggression with doleful, post-Nirvana self-evisceration. The singer-guitarist has evolved enough to mellow out now and again -- which he does on "Gone," a tune that bears a trace of early-'70s Stones in its country-blues groove -- but he stays true enough to his roots to conjure the punch of Alice in Chains at their peak. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Due to its unfortunate timing -- arriving in stores about two months after the passing of his former bandmate, Layne Staley -- it may be impossible not to view Jerry Cantrell's second solo album, Degradation Trip, without hearing it through the prism of the demise of Alice in Chains and the death of Staley. First of all, the sound is instantly reminiscent of Cantrell's former band because, of course, he was instrumental in creating the slow, brooding minor-key grinds topped with flat vocal harmonies that were the group's stock in trade. Second, if you dig through the lyrics, it's easy to speculate that some of them are about the addiction that sunk Staley. These two qualities are so prominent that some may have a hard time getting around them, but serious listeners and longtime fans will find it much easier to get past the surface and appreciate the album as Cantrell's best record since Dirt. True, it does bear the hallmark of a guitarist who is allowed to indulge his instrumental ideas, with several tracks being as epic as a classic prog rock number, yet this is a good thing since not only are his ideas frequently intriguing, but they are balanced with shorter songs -- cuts that aren't necessarily snappier, but certainly more concise -- giving the record a real sense of momentum, something that's only enhanced by his best, most consistent writing since Dirt. Essentially, this is a more ambitious, focused spin on Alice in Chains' final studio album -- -- which may make it sound a little out of place in 2002, since it is defiantly out of fashion and builds on Alice in Chains' early-'90s sound, but it certainly serves as an effective reminder in a time that's over-run with Alice in Chains clones of how powerful, dramatic, and resonant these hypnotic guitar dirges can be, especially when they're written by somebody at the top of their game. Stephen Thomas Erlewine