This Angry Pen of Mine: Recovering the Journals of Layne Staley
Hardcover | Kindle Edition
By Layne Staley
Publisher: Weldon Owen
Release date: November 11, 2025

Layne Staley, frontman of grunge rock giants Alice In Chains, died 24 years ago today at his Seattle, WA apartment from a drug overdose at 34 years old. It was on the 8th anniversary of the death of fellow grunge luminary Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Like Cobain, Staley’s public battles with addiction and subsequent misconceptions about his life have become interwoven with his legacy, at times overshadowing the music. Now, Staley’s family hopes to bring the focus back to the singer’s music and art contributions with This Angry Pen of Mine: Recovering the Journals of Layne Staley, which reproduces some of the musician’s journal entries, lyric sheets, and much more.

Just Beyond The Light
Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
By D. Randall Blythe
Publisher: Da Capo
Release Date: February 18, 2025

A decade after D. Randall Blythe bared his soul in Dark Days, his gut-wrenching memoir detailing his time served in a Czech prison, the frontman of heavy metal group Lamb of God returns now with Just Beyond The Light, proving to be a modern-day philosopher for the common man. In this introspective work, he tackles subjects like maintaining sobriety, honing one’s craft, embracing positivity, and combatting Internet “armchair experts.”

Jim Morrison once waxed on wax about how “the future is uncertain and the end is always near.” Well if that’s the true-be-all-end-all-whatsit statement folks, then it’s a good thing that music is always near to help with the confusion. No matter what the mood or attitude of the homosapien: mad, glad, depressed, morose, lively, ebullient, ragtag, etc., music is always a welcome addition regardless of what’s going on or what’s going down. This year’s crop of sonic comestibles should take care of anyone feeling hi-fi or lo-hi; either way, all of them are welcome additions under the tree or near the menorah or whatever your late year holiday preference may be. Human beings have so many choices to choose from these days, and here’s some more below.

Check out our 2022 Holiday Gift Guide for Music.

Today would have been the 81st birthday of Phil Ochs, the 1960s protest/folk singer who in many ways still stands as one of the most urgent, intelligent, and political spokesman of his generation, and who probably would have gotten a lot more adoration and respect if he hadn’t lived under the shadow of his musical cohort Bob Dylan. 2021 also marks the 45th anniversary of the tragic death of Ochs, who died by hanging himself at his sister’s house in Far Rockaway, New York in April 1976. But it is Ochs’s life that is going to get the spotlight treatment here, and with overdue good measure.

So this is the “new normal?” Or is it a return to the “old normal?” Either way, regardless of how you spent this past year, regardless of your thoughts on the world, politics, and economics of the world, furrowing your eyebrows at this or that or embracing all the necessary and arguably unnecessary changes in the world, one needs a constant personal and universal soundtrack to keep going, to keep sane, to keep grounded and inspired. As the newest round of the holiday season gets ready to dawn upon us, music not only acts as the perfect and always obvious choices for even the most discriminating of tastes, but also something that brings much-needed relief and communion to end another challenging year and brace everyone for what lies ahead in 2022. So as always, here’s my picks for some of the sonic highlights released this year, spanning all genres and tastes.

Check out our 2021 Holiday Gift Guide for Music.