A worthy return, although sadly a victim of the loudness war, making this possibly the loudest, most overly-compressed album released so-far. The result is one motherfucking heavy slab of gothic-grunge-metal. This is not easy listening. This is music which demands to be played fucking loud, or not at all. William DuVall fills Layne Staley's post impressively, and Cantrell's guitar-work and songcraft remain as charismatic as ever. While their recent tour proved that Alice In Chains is still a band well worth paying attention to, "Black Gives Way To Blue" is just too relentless (partly due to the horribly butchered mastering) to be anything more than an occasional listen.
