JAR OF FLIES

RECORD NOTES

THE BEST EP EVER TO EXIST ON PLANET EARTH. FULL STOP. Doom metal. Sludge metal. Alternative metal. One of the darkest bands to emerge from Grunge. Alice in Chains has been given plenty of names—names capable of frightening away listeners who were never properly introduced to them. My advice? Don’t judge first. Listen to this EP. Where do I even begin with Jar of Flies? Spotify did the counting for me. According to its statistics, this was my most-listened-to album for two consecutive years: 2024 and 2025. I was introduced to it only in 2024, but it became one of those rare albums I loved immediately. Not after five listens. Not after slowly understanding its reputation. Immediately. Back in the 1990s, particularly in the Tamil film industry, the soundtrack would usually be released before the film as part of its promotion.

I think they still do it now, although I no longer follow the industry closely enough to know. Listening to those songs before seeing the film allowed your imagination to run wild. Inside your head, you would create snowy mountains, endless green valleys and beautiful landscapes. Then the actual film would finally arrive—and the snowy mountains in your imagination would be replaced by some barren desert. Hahaha. That’s the Tamil film industry, y’all. Fortunately, many rock albums did not arrive with a full set of music videos capable of controlling our imagination. Jar of Flies had a couple, most notably the strange stop-motion circus of “I Stay Away,” but most of the album remained visually free. It gave me enough empty space to build a world of my own. You may ask: “Bro, forty-three already, bro.

Why are you still doing this childish imagination stuff you used to do as a teenager?” And I would answer: “That is music to me, bro. I want it to bring me somewhere.” So, where does Jar of Flies bring me? Imagine the ruins of a once-magnificent cathedral in the middle of a dark forest. Its roof has collapsed. Its stone walls are broken and covered in age. There are almost no stars above it. The surrounding trees stand like frightening witnesses. The band is playing inside those ruins—but not in the usual formation of a rock band. They are scattered throughout the cathedral, each man alone in a different corner. One sits against a broken wall. Another is hunched over his guitar. Someone else stares silently at the floor. They are playing together, yet each appears completely alone. It feels like a funeral. They continue playing song after song as the darkness slowly moves towards dawn.

By the final track, “Swing on This,” the first trace of sunlight begins to appear. There is only one more detail: The cathedral, the forest, the band and the entire night are happening underwater. “Sunlight? Underwater?” you may ask. “My artsy world. Anything is possible la. bro” That is the atmosphere of Jar of Flies to me. But beyond its atmosphere, I also hear a structure. The seven songs do not feel like unrelated pieces placed beside one another. They feel like chapters in a single story. This is only my interpretation—my own dark and twisted little movie—but whenever I listen to the EP, this is the story I hear. “Rotten Apple” is the perfect beginning. It does not feel like an ordinary opening song. It feels like a mythical prologue introducing the central force that will haunt everything that follows: drugs. The bassline crawls out of the darkness first.

Then the talk box appears like a voice that is not entirely human. The song establishes the temptation, the damage and the loss of innocence that will shape the rest of the story. The apple has already been offered. Someone has already taken a bite. Then comes “Nutshell.” If “Rotten Apple” introduces the poison, “Nutshell” reveals the person who reached for it— and the road that led him there. It begins with ambition: the desire to become known, to have his talent recognised and to become someone in the world. But fame eventually turns against him. Recognition becomes a loss of privacy. Talent becomes a burden of expectation. Strangers print lies about him, judge him and gradually claim ownership over the person he is supposed to be. Surrounded by people, he becomes completely alone.

That is when addiction creeps in—not suddenly, but quietly, offering itself as shelter from a life he can no longer control. The song does not sound like a man explaining himself to the world. It sounds like a man who has already stopped expecting the world to understand. Yet I still hear a small trace of hope in its final verse. Somewhere inside him remains the belief that one day—although he cannot promise himself when, where or how—he will conquer the addiction and reclaim ownership of his life. But the ending is also brutally uncompromising. If he can no longer belong to himself, if the addiction permanently takes away the person he once was, then death feels preferable to living as someone—or something— he no longer recognises. It is hope, but hope standing at the very edge of a cliff. “I Stay Away,” the third song, is strange and beautiful.

On the surface, it can sound almost like a road song: travelling south, leaving somewhere behind, beginning a journey that may not be pleasant. But in my dark interpretation, it is not about an ordinary journey. I hear a conversation between Layne and the heroin he is taking. Heroin becomes a character in the story. It whispers into his ear, offering comfort, motivation and false promises of salvation. It tells him that it can carry him away from his pain. It brainwashes him gently, persuading him to surrender a little more of himself. It is the Devil offering the apple from the first song. The price is his soul. (My interpretation la. You know I am an overthinker.) Then comes “No Excuses,” another deeply conversational song. I can hear it in two ways. Perhaps it is “I Stay Away: Part Two.” The conversation between Layne and heroin continues, except now Layne is speaking more.

He is no longer merely listening to the promises. He is arguing with his devil, perhaps trying to regain control of the conversation. But there is another—and probably more human—way to hear it. It may be a conversation between two friends drifting apart: Layne and Jerry. They are hurt, frustrated and exhausted, yet something continues to bind them together. Beneath the disappointment, there is loyalty. Beneath the anger, there is still love. Most importantly, there is hope. Maybe Jerry has not given up on Layne yet. Then the voices disappear completely. “Whale & Wasp.” I once heard that this composition had some connection to Jerry’s grandmother, although I have never been able to confirm it. What Jerry did explain was that it was one of his older pieces and that the guitar parts sounded to him like a conversation between whales and wasps. That description is perfect.

If guitars could wail like living creatures, perhaps they would sound like this. One voice is enormous, mournful and distant. The other is smaller, sharper and restless. They circle one another without words. Perhaps this instrumental is the reason my imaginary cathedral exists underwater. Perhaps it comes from “Rotten Apple” too—the bass, the talk box and the sensation of slowly sinking. Whatever created that image, “Whale & Wasp” belongs exactly where it appears. It is not an interruption to the story. It is the moment when language fails. The character has travelled so deeply into himself that words can no longer reach him. Only the whale can call to him now. Then comes “Don’t Follow.” I will never change my mind about this song: it is Layne and Jerry coming together to tell one story.

The exchange between their voices makes it feel like two men standing on opposite sides of the same life. It begins without hope. Someone believes he can no longer be saved. He has lost too much and travelled too far. He is not living anymore; he is simply waiting for life to release him. Then the song becomes more animated. For a moment, it remembers movement, friendship, alcohol, roads and the life these men once shared. But even during that livelier passage, the hopelessness never completely disappears. It is always waiting beneath the song. And then comes Layne’s final plea: “Take me home.” Three simple words change the entire meaning of the story. Until that moment, the character appears to have accepted that there is no salvation. But suddenly, he asks for one. Somewhere beneath the addiction, shame and exhaustion, a small part of him still wants to return. Hope has not won.

But it is alive. That makes “Don’t Follow,” to me, a song about hope—not the bright, triumphant kind, but the weakest possible flame still burning inside someone who has almost surrendered. Then comes the final song, “Swing on This.” This is why I believe the whole EP tells one continuous story. “Swing on This” feels like the sequel to “Don’t Follow.” Our character has asked to be taken home. Now that home is within reach, doubt begins to consume him. His family is calling him back. But what will happen if he returns in this condition? What will they see when he walks through the door? Will he break their hearts? Can he truly abandon the life that is destroying him? Can he adapt to being someone else—or has addiction already become the only identity he understands? In “Don’t Follow,” he asks for salvation. In “Swing on This,” he becomes frightened of it.

That is the first sunlight appearing over my underwater cathedral. It does not illuminate everything. It does not magically raise the ruins from the ocean floor. It is merely a thin ray penetrating the water. But it is there. The real story behind the EP is almost as extraordinary as the one I hear within it. After the long Dirt touring cycle, the band returned to Seattle and discovered that they had been evicted from their shared residence. With nowhere to stay, they moved into London Bridge Studio. They entered without a prepared collection of songs. What began as an experiment—four musicians playing together and testing their chemistry with new bassist Mike Inez—became Jar of Flies. They wrote and recorded the entire EP in approximately seven days. They had not even intended to release it. Columbia heard the recordings and encouraged them to put them out.

Then this accidental, seven- song creation became the first EP in history to debut at Number One on the Billboard 200. So much history lives inside this small record. Yet whenever I listen to it, the charts and achievements disappear. I return to that ruined cathedral beneath the water and watch seven songs weave themselves into a story about addiction. Yes, many people call Jar of Flies an addiction album. But I hear something slightly different. I hear the person behind the addiction. A normal human being. Someone wounded enough to accept the apple. Someone gradually deteriorating, becoming trapped inside the very thing that once promised to save him. Someone who still hears a distant voice calling him home. Someone who reaches towards hope—and then pulls his hand away because hope itself has become frightening. It is a story of temptation, destruction and salvation.

A story about a man swaying between surrendering to death and returning to life. That is Jar of Flies to me. The best EP ever to exist on planet Earth. Full stop.