Rediscovering music can be a rewarding experience and Mad Season's sole record, Above, has been in my rotation for the last 5 days. Upon its initial release, I was aware of its existence, but it's only been very recently that I've truly learned to appreciate this fantastic and interesting union of musicians. Unlike "Temple of the Dog" which was a kickstart for "Pearl Jam" courtesy of Chris Cornell's initial tribute to the lead singer from "Mother Love Bone"(guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament's former group), this record features members of the Seattle scene of the time: Alice in Chains' Layne Staley, drummer Barrett Martin(Screaming Trees), Mike McCready(Pearl Jam) and blues bassist, John Baker Saunders; the root of this project was formed from McCready and Saunders' meeting in a rehabilitation center as both musicians were detoxing. Barrett Martin joined up with the two and also Mark Lanegan, frontman for the Screaming Trees, got involved briefly and during Layne Staley's involvement, co-writing "I'm Above" and "Long Gone Day". The music contained is an interesting hybrid of the members' other bands'; obviously you can hear elements of Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees with tracks like "X-Ray Mind", "I Don't Know Anything" and the record's opener, "Wake Up", but the union of this quartet shows much promise. Unfortunately, because of circumstances within their existing groups' as well as the later deaths of bassist John Baker Saunders(1999) and Layne Staley(2002), Mad Season became a one off project.

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"River of Deceit" is the best known track and became the album's main single, charting at #2 in the US and #9 in the UK, it is a melodically mellow, yet quietly impenetrable song, sung beautifully by Staley with prolific guitar accompaniment from Mike McCready. "Artificial Red" is a slow groove, blues-based track that contains a special charm and "Long Gone Day" features saxophone and backing vocals from Screaming Trees frontman, Mark Lanegan, culminating in one of the album's most interesting and musically diverse moments outside of the context with the rest of the material.  The closing numbers in "November Hotel" and "All Alone", are musically rich, with the former being an exceptional instrumental and the latter featuring melodic vocal graces repeating the number's title in tandem with its main written theme. 

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Although McCready and Martin attempted to re-form the group in '97, even going so far as to rename the project "Disinformation" and drafting in Lanegan as a replacement vocalist for Staley, all hopes were dashed with the death of bassist, John Baker Saunders when he overdosed in January of '99. For a brief moment in time during 1995, Mad Season remains an interesting project and thankfully, there is a record left behind to show the proof of what promise and talent this particular union of players could do with one another.

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Rating Grade- A