New Alice in Chains record

Would you listen to a Dio record without Dio? AIC without Staley is impossible. Whether Staley wrote the majority of the songs or not is irrelevant. It was his voice that characterised their trademark sound, and without that voice, the sound cannot exist.

Too right you are, i'm a fairly big fan of AIC and it would probably be best if they changed the name or something like that, because Staley was just one of those people who made the band, without him, it wont be the same, same as its not Nirvana without Kurt...
 
I'll definitely give their new album a shot. I really like the band, but will try not to get my hopes up way to high and set crazy expectations for the new disc.