Mad Season Reissue Spawns Documentary [VIDEO]

90's grunge supergroup Mad Season only recorded one album, 'Above', but what an album it was! Featuring Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, Barrett Martin of the Screaming Trees, and blues bassist John Baker Saunders - 'Above' was recorded in nine days, released in 1995, and became an instant critical and commercial success. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic said that the album

sounds like a cross between Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam, taking the ponderous seriousness of Alice and PJ's '90s update of winding '70s guitar rock.

Attempts at recording a second Mad Season were a doomed effort, as Staley's health deteriorated due to drug addiction. When the remaining members decided to continue without Staley, Mad Season's fate was sealed with the death of Saunders in 1999. We lost Layne Staley three years later.

Ten years after the death of Staley, McCready and Martin, the surviving members of Mad Season, decided to release a deluxe edition of Above, collaborating with Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan to complete songs from Mad Season’s unfinished second album, which they will include alongside 'Above'. In a March 2012 interview, Martin said

To honor our departed brothers, Mike [McCready] and I oversaw a Mad Season box set, which comes out March 12th, 2013. It contains the re-mastered Above album, the Moore concert on DVD with surround sound, and a bunch of live recordings that we never released. The most exciting stuff: three songs that Mark Lanegan wrote lyrics and sang on, songs that we started to record for the second album but never finished because of Baker’s and Layne’s deaths. One of the songs Peter Buck wrote with us, and the other two are from me and Mike. They are three of the heaviest and most beautiful songs Mad Season did, and I know Layne and Baker will love them.

The deluxe edition contains two CDs and a DVD, and drops on on April 2.

Check out a mini-documentary on the reissue here: