Eamon Blog

Today's Shelf Pull: Alice in Chains, Jar of Flies

Less distortion, no shortage of weight

Alice in Chains make room for acoustic guitars, close harmonies and uncomfortable quiet on Jar of Flies. Read the full story from Kilmorna in Listowel.

Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains is a useful reminder that a heavy record need not spend its whole time raising its voice. Its acoustic guitars leave room around the singing, and that room is not particularly comfortable. The harmonies offer closeness without quite offering reassurance. You can settle into the music without expecting it to settle your nerves.

For today's vinyl selection in Listowel, this seven-track EP makes a compact but substantial proposition. Released in 1994, it brings the band's darker musical instincts into arrangements where restraint does much of the work. There is less distortion to lean against, so the melodic lines and the spaces between them become harder to ignore. Quiet is not the same as easy.

The first thing worth attending to is the balance. Acoustic texture does not simply soften the songs. It exposes their contours, making each rise in intensity feel consequential rather than automatic.

There is no need to treat this as a holiday from the band's heavier music. The pressure is still there. It has moved from the surface into the relationships between the parts.

Rotten Apple opens slowly enough to make patience part of the listening. Rather than rushing towards a single point of arrival, it lets the arrangement establish its own weather. The spaciousness matters as much as the notes occupying it. Listen to how the layered guitars and vocal harmonies share that space without making the song feel crowded or fully resolved.

Nutshell draws the attention inward. Following the opener, its intimacy feels less like a change of subject than a closer look at the same unease. The restrained setting gives the singing little to hide behind, but this is not a contest in exposed emotion. What holds the ear is the proportion: enough detail to stay with, enough room to feel it.

These opening songs reward a modest adjustment in attention. Instead of waiting for an arrangement to become bigger, notice how much feeling it can carry while keeping its dimensions relatively small.

That distinction helps explain the EP's coherence. The songs do not need identical shapes to belong together. Their shared atmosphere comes from the care with which melody, harmony and space are held in balance.

I Stay Away gives the melodic movement more lift. Coming after Nutshell, that upward reach changes the scale of the record without clearing away its melancholy. This is one of the pleasures of the sequence: a broader gesture can arrive without sounding like an escape route. The music opens out, but it does not pretend that everything has been sorted.

No Excuses brings a more buoyant groove to the end of Side A. The movement is welcome, though it would be a mistake to hear it as a clean break with what came before. Its place in the running order lets rhythm change the temperature without changing the record's character. There is a little more light, not an entirely different room.

The side division provides a sensible pause after those four songs. On vinyl, that interruption can make the change in atmosphere easier to notice. It is a feature of the sequence, not a promise about sound quality.

Side B begins with Whale & Wasp, whose instrumental setting gives the ear a different task. Without words to follow, shape and atmosphere move forward. The record's quieter concerns do not depend entirely on a voice.

Don't Follow extends the quieter stretch before Swing On This closes the seven-song running order. By this stage, the EP has established enough of its own language that the sequence feels worth following to the end.

Brevity helps. There is room for contrast, but not much room for the mood to become background furniture. The record asks for attention without making a grand administrative demand on the rest of the day.

What stays with me about Jar of Flies is its refusal to confuse delicacy with relief. The acoustic emphasis makes the music more exposed, not less substantial. Harmonies can be beautiful and still leave something unsettled behind them. That tension gives these songs a reason to be heard together, rather than merely recognised.

For a shelf pull, that is recommendation enough: a short record with a distinct shape and plenty to notice on another listen. Alice in Chains do not need to fill every corner here. Leave the gaps intact, follow the changes in scale, and let the quieter passages keep their weight.

On the shelf today:

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies

LP, 1994

Rock

EUR 29.95

Available from The Kilmorna Collection, Listowel

Buy or reserve: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl/alice-in-chains-jar-of-flies

Buying vinyl records in Ireland: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl-records-ireland

On the shelf today

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies

LP / Rock / 1994

EUR29.95 / Available now

Order / Reserve