Not to sound crass, but when a high-profile member of a band bites the dust, chances are good that the band will take a dirt nap, too. Damageplan split after Dimebag Darrell's murder; the surviving members of Sublime were court-ordered to play under a different name following Bradley Nowell's death; and, most famously, Alice in Chains (and much of the '90s Seattle sound) crumbled when lead singer Layne Staley died of a drug overdose in 2002. But like a grungy phoenix rising from the ashes, the band — with original members Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez and Sean Kinney, and Comes With the Fall frontman William DuVall — is back with a world tour and a new album, Black Gives Way to Blue. And regardless of whether DuVall's channeling of Staley's famous nasal vocals is impressive or sacrilegious, it's hard to hear the reincarnation of a musical era and not wonder what might have been.
