May 28, 2013, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here arrived like a slow-moving landslide—inescapable, deliberate, and carrying the unmistakable weight of a band that had outlived its own mythology. If Black Gives Way to Blue was Alice in Chains’ somber resurrection, this follow-up was the proof of life—bloated with gravity, sharpened with intent, and unconcerned with trends. This wasn’t a band returning to reclaim a throne. It was a band exorcising everything that once made the throne matter.
Ten years on, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here stands not just as a worthy addition to their legacy but as one of its most intriguing, shadow-drenched chapters. A record built on slow burns, cryptic theology, and a kind of beauty that only blooms in rot.
Fossils of Doubt, Foundations of Sludge
Opening track “Hollow” wastes no time setting the mood: thick, crawling riffs roll in like black tar, while Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall's vocals intertwine like smoke and soil. There's no climax, no release—just a grim trudge through existential sludge. It’s a deliberate anti-anthem and the perfect gateway into the album’s swampy terrain.
The album’s core thesis isn’t anger—it’s disillusionment. The tempos are slow, the production murky, the tone deeply cynical. Tracks like “Stone” lumber forward with prehistoric weight, their detuned riffs almost physically oppressive. “Voices,” deceptively melodic, toys with vulnerability but reveals only deeper cracks beneath the surface. This is music designed not to uplift, but to expose. Each song is like a wound reopened, not for spectacle—but for examination.
Even the title track feels less like a rock song and more like a theological provocation. “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” skewers blind faith and dogma, but it does so with slow, dirge-like restraint. There’s no punchline, just slow revelation: belief systems rot just like bodies do.
A Voice from Beyond the Static
By this point, DuVall is no longer standing in anyone’s shadow. While Layne Staley’s absence will always echo through the band’s DNA, DuVall steps in not as an imitator, but as a medium—channeling the same pain from a new vessel. His harmonies with Cantrell don’t imitate the past; they mutate it. Tracks like “Low Ceiling” and “Phantom Limb” see DuVall’s voice soar above and sink below Cantrell’s in a kind of mournful dance. There’s no clear lead—just two ghosts narrating different sides of the same haunting.
Cantrell, for his part, continues to refine his role as both sonic architect and emotional cornerstone. His vocals on “Scalpel” drip with weary introspection, as if every word is another step through emotional quicksand. His guitar work, while less flashy than in previous eras, hits harder because it’s precise. Every riff is like a stone monument dropped in the dirt—final, imposing, undeniable.
The Ritual of Restraint
Unlike the speed and fury of many metal contemporaries, Alice in Chains wields heaviness through restraint. The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here stretches nearly 70 minutes, and it feels long—but not in the way lesser records do. This isn’t filler—it’s friction. Each track demands patience, each chorus unfurls slowly, as if afraid to reveal too much too soon. The reward for that patience is immersion.
“Breath on a Window” momentarily lifts the veil, hinting at something warmer, more reflective—until it sinks back into the fog. “Hung on a Hook” is perhaps the album’s most emotionally raw moment, with its chorus dragging like a confession whispered in chains. “Lab Monkey” slinks with paranoia, while “Choke” closes the record not with resolution, but with resignation.
There are no answers here. Just echoes.
Production as Paleontology
Producer Nick Raskulinecz captures the album’s bleak essence perfectly. This isn’t a clean record—it’s weathered, overcast, and intentionally caked in grit. The guitars rumble like tectonic plates, the drums sound like they were recorded in an abandoned steel mill, and the bass groans from subterranean depths. It’s all mixed with clarity but never polished. The grime is part of the aesthetic—it belongs here.
Rather than chase modern rock’s slick tendencies, Alice in Chains create an environment that feels ancient and diseased. You don’t just hear the songs—you walk through them, like a burned-out church filled with smoke and silence.
A Gospel of the Grotesque
Where many bands of their era succumbed to reinvention or irrelevance, Alice in Chains chose preservation. But they didn’t just preserve their past—they petrified it, like bones turned to stone. The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here doesn’t try to recapture youth. It reflects on age, doubt, and the decay that follows belief.
There’s no glamor here. No redemption arc. This is the sound of a band living with scars, not glorifying them. In a genre so often obsessed with speed or spectacle, Alice in Chains dug deeper—into soil, myth, and memory.
Standout Tracks:
- Hollow
- Stone
- Voices
- The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
- Scalpel
- Hung on a Hook
- Phantom Limb
Fossilized Faith, Living Legacy
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is not just an album—it’s an excavation. Of trauma. Of belief. Of identity. Ten years later, it hasn’t aged—it’s ossified. Still imposing. Still unmovable. Still echoing with the sound of questions no one wants to answer.
It’s not an easy listen. It’s not meant to be. This is music that lingers like smoke in your lungs. It challenges, unnerves, and—if you let it—transforms. In a catalog defined by pain and brilliance, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is the slowest, heaviest descent—and one of Alice in Chains’ most brutally honest achievements.
This isn't a band reborn. It’s a band unearthed, fully intact, bones and all.
