The twilight of grunge may be upon us, but some of the flannel era's smart players are already angling to get in on the days of the new. Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell tests the solo waters with Boggy Depot, and it easily could have been the most pointless comeback since the Snapple lady's. But Cantrell wisely chose not to hire a techno producer or a string section to art things up – instead, he's made the same reliably hook-y Seventies metal album that Alice in Chains always made.

The sound is basically Alice in Handcuffs: Cantrell has the same gritty, lowdown voice as Alice's Layne Staley, and while he gets instrumental help from members of Fishbone, Primus and Pantera, he sticks to catchy midtempo Neander-riffs that come clean about his metal jones. Cantrell lets us know he loves Led Zeppelin in "Breaks My Back," which sounds exactly like "No Quarter" except it lasts eight seconds longer and fails to mention Thor, and in the charming acoustic ballad "Between," which begins with the words "going to California." Nothing here would've sounded novel or earth-shattering in 1978, let alone 1998, but Cantrell sure does know his trade. He's always been an unusually tuneful metal guitarist – he wrote Alice's finest radio hit, the shimmering "No Excuses" – and his songwriting has its moments, as in the brutal drug-buddy farewell "Cut You In." So don't expect any major surprises from Boggy Depot; for better and worse, the song remains the same. (RS 784)

ROB SHEFFIELD