Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	69/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Aquarian Weekly	A−
BBC	favorable
Blabbermouth.net	8.5/10
Drowned in Sound	7/10
Stuff.co.nz
Kerrang!
Metal Hammer	10/10
Rolling Stone
The Skinny

Black Gives Way to Blue is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Alice in Chains, released in September 29, 2009. It is their first record without singer Layne Staley, who died in 2002. It instead features new vocalist and rhythm guitarist William DuVall. It is the first Alice in Chains album released on Virgin Records and their first venture away from Columbia, who handled all of their previous releases. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on May 26, 2010, with shipments exceeding 500,000 copies and has sold 1 million copies worldwide.

The span of nearly fourteen years between the self-titled album and Black Gives Way to Blue marks the longest gap between studio albums in Alice in Chains' career. The band had been working on new material since early 2006, shortly before hiring DuVall as their new singer. By April 2007, Alice in Chains had been writing and demoing songs for the album, but the band did not show further signs of progress until October 2008, when they announced that they had begun recording with producer Nick Raskulinecz in the studio. The writing and recording process was completed on March 18, 2009, guitarist Jerry Cantrell's 43rd birthday. Musically the album sees the band return to the heavy metal/hard rock style of Dirt and Facelift instead of the murky dark mood that their third album showcased with more grunge-fuzz pedal elements; some songs also have acoustic elements reminiscent of the band's two acoustic EPs also from their third album; it also includes songs which guitarist Jerry Cantrell described as "the heaviest he's ever written".

In 2005, Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez, and drummer Sean Kinney reunited to perform a benefit concert in Seattle for victims of the tsunami disaster that struck South Asia. On March 10, 2006, the surviving members performed at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert, honoring fellow Seattle musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. The band followed the concert with a short United States club tour, several festival dates in Europe, and a brief tour in Japan. Comes with the Fall vocalist DuVall joined Alice in Chains as lead singer during the band's reunion concerts.

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Wikipedia