Drug abuse was as rampant in the Seattle scene as frayed flannel shirts, and few local artists chronicled junkie conflicts quite so persistently as Layne Staley. As frontman for Alice in Chains, he approached the subject with a cagey ambivalence that allowed that band to navigate from glam metal also-rans to grunge grunge mainstays. Drugs were a temptation as well as a burden, and at his best Staley implied that addiction prodded the scene’s severe introversion-- as if that was the pain that everyone was singing about. At his worst, though, he could be ridiculously self-righteous and pompously poetic about his habit. If you don’t believe me, read the lyrics to “Junkhead”.
After Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and journeyman bass player John Baker Saunders met at rehab and formed a band, they brought in Staley primarily because they thought he would benefit from being around some clean musicians. With Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin rounding out the band, they played a few shows locally as the Gacy Bunch before decorum prevailed and they rebilled themselves as Mad Season. Even that band name is druggy: a term for the time of year when psilocybin mushrooms are in bloom. In 1995, Mad Season released their one and only album, Above, which notched an honest-to-God radio hit with “River of Deceit”-- something that higher-profile side projects Brad and Temple of the Dog never managed. Efforts to record a follow-up in 1997 went nowhere. Saunders OD’ed in ’99, Staley in ’02.
18 years after its release, Above is getting the deluxe reissue treatment, complete with unreleased live tracks, a DVD, and some recently completed recordings from the aborted follow-up sessions. It’s a handsome package and easily the definitive statement on this Seattle footnote, but all those extras can’t compensate for what is a bewilderingly self-absorbed album, one so dully self-serious that in retrospect it may have killed grunge dead. So combative and caustic with Alice in Chains, Staley lets his ongoing self-examination curdle into clunky therapyspeak and ponderous nonsense. “My pain is self-chosen, at least I believe it to be,” he insists on “River of Deceit”, succinctly summing up everything that was wrong with 90s alt-rock.
It’s not entirely Staley’s fault. Mad Season was a new group, and its members were still figuring out what all they could do together. In the reissue liner notes, Barrett Martin maintains they were actually a blues band, which isn’t quite as incredible as it might sound: Saunders, older than his bandmates by a decade, had spent long years in the Chicago and Minneapolis blues scenes, backing Hubert Sumlin and Lamont Cranston. Still, Mad Season wasn’t necessarily interested in blues structure or subject matter, at least not directly. Instead, these songs are long on vaguely bluesy atmosphere. In other words: ominous, minor key, crossroadsy. The average song length runs between six and seven minutes, which makes Above a real slog. They fill that time with some heavy riffage, some noodling straight off a “Yellow Ledbetter” outtake, some marimba chords, and a saxophone solo. It’s not blues grunge so much as lounge grunge.
While Seattle is credited with stamping out the previous decade’s decadent hard rock, heavy metal was always a crucial influence on grunge. The band members’ day-job groups may have sounded like punk that had integrated classic rock at a molecular level, but on Above the nods to metals acts are obvious and unmistakable. Not one but two songs, including opener “Wake Up”, crib the subdued psych-murk of Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan”, and McCready does his best Jimmy Page on “Lifeless Dead” and pretty much every other song. Led Zeppelin’s influence isn’t merely in his mile-high riffs, but in the relationship between the lead guitar and the rhythm section. The former struts, the latter stomps, but the effect is all too familiar. Mad Season weren’t interpreting these acts, but merely aping them.
Still, the band’s try-anything ethos is commendable and even occasionally exciting. The glam-punk chorus of “I’m Above” makes good use of Staley’s potent sneer. Then the song breaks for a Spanish guitar solo, and the moment is so random that it becomes bracing, as though every possibility remains open to them. That’s what a side project is for, after all. But not once does Above sound like the work of a real side project-- like four guys relieved to be away from their workaday gigs. Despite the success of “River of Deceit” on alt-rock radio, Above was not especially well received in 1995, and Staley notes this fact on the live disc. He berates critics for writing “retarded reviews,” countering that the band had a “fucking blast” recording the album. Perhaps they did, but the music they made is anything but a blast. These songs are for the most part joyless and strained.
Live, however, Mad Season sound more in their element. What seemed leaden in the studio comes off loose on the stage, as evidenced by recordings of their show at Seattle's Moore Theater on April 29, 1995, and footage from their New Year's Eve show later that year. Onstage, “Lifeless Dead” becomes an especially punchy jam, anchored by the tremendous rhythm section, and local saxophone player Skerik vamps and skronks through John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier” as the crowd moshes in slo-mo. The set lags towards the end and dies with a 14-minute version of “November Hotel”, but these guys actually look like they might be having fun up there. McCready even solos with the guitar behind his head. It’s goofy as shit, but that’s what makes it a highlight: it’s the one moment in the life of Mad Season when someone managed to crack a smile.
