After a nearly 20-year gap between albums, Jerry Cantrell has released his third solo effort, Brighten.
The Alice in Chains singer-guitarist was surrounded by friends and musical co-conspirators for the loose and no-pressure recording sessions. As Cantrell told us in our extensive interview, he set out to make a record without any “expectation” except “making some music.”
He describes the resulting nine-song LP as “a journey up through darkness to light,” hence the summery album title. Fans of Alice In Chains’ more acoustic-based material should find a lot to love with the new collection.
Among the players supporting Cantrell on the record include film composer Tyler Bates, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, former Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato, keyboardist Vincent Jones, pedal steel player Michael Rozon, drummers Gil Sharone and Abe Laboriel Jr., and more. It was produced by Cantrell and Bates, with mixed and engineering by Joe Barresi and Paul Figueroa, respecively.
As an extension of our interview with Jerry Cantrell, the legendary musician graciously dove into each song off the new album, offering Consequence an exclusive track by track breakdown. Stream the album in full below as you read Cantrell’s description of each song. You can purchase Brighten via Cantrell’s online store or digitally via Amazon.
Cantrell is set to support Brighten with a North American tour in 2022, with tickets available here.
“Atone”
That’s Tyler Bates on the chains in a bucket [at the beginning]. Awesome call on that. He had ’em in the studio that day when we were messing around with that song. And he was like, “I’m feeling this has an Aerosmith ‘Back in the Saddle’ kind of vibe” — I think they used cardboard or some chains or something. So Tyler’s like, “Check this out,” and he whips out a bucket with these chains and starts dropping them on the beat. And it was awesome; it was totally perfect. Great call.
