ccording to producer Dave Jerden, this was the only song recorded from the Ritual de lo Habitual album sessions where all 4 members played in the studio at the same time. Sadly none of Jane’s Addiction can really corroborate this story as “Three Days” was written and recorded during a period of heroin induced friction. At nearly eleven minutes long and featuring philosophising on cultural abandonment and sex during a three day ménage a tois, it deserves to be called an epic because of more than its length.

The moment happens just beyond the 9:23 mark, Perry Farrell counts us down with a drill sergeant scream of “a one two three four”. A heartbeat; the throb of the rhythm section playing as one whilst sparks of electric guitar are thrown up. Then the moment: the dog let loose from the straining chain, the voluntary step off the ledge, the bright light of an explosion before the sound; the tsunami of the four coming together.

Perry wordlessly screams in fits and starts, even managing a “Wahoo!,” that least impressive of all rock exclamations, until he just slings the mic away, as he loses it and lapses into his old school flailing, undulating, stumbling dance (which, since the Relapse reformation, has now become more of a Rock Peacock strut). Navarro’s soft chiming guitars continue to ring under his frantic slashing and sprawling solos which, as always, are swept up from the brink of rock pigosity by the slab-like rock riffs. Finger picked notes drip from the end of power chords resembling molten lava. Eric Avery’s melodic, wandering bass is pivotal to this extended moment (and, coincidentally, the missing element of the de-clawed alt.rock pop of Strays). Here it’s growling, a ferocious looped low body blow which is forcefully pulled back from the high end of the scale right back into the tight loop again. In case you’re wondering, the drums are in there but here they only play a supporting role clattering around the bass; they follow its lead.

It’s the final freak-out release of a song built up on the ebb and flow interaction of the players, the elasticity and lack of restraint hedged by the groove and melody of the rhythm. The song soon trails off to its end, lazily meandering to its post coital ending spent. This is where the old Jane’s excel over Mk II, the trance-like lulls and tribal pulse of the final unleashing of the energy balanced with that one boot on the monitor.

For a long time I wished that Jane’s Addiction would reform and try to go as high and as far as they did on Ritual, but the music on Strays (and, on a totally superficial level, the unintentionally hilarious album and August 2003 Spin cover) show that something has gone wrong. It’s a shame that Avery appears to be the one on the sharp end of the jokes in choosing Alanis Morrisette over the reformation when Strays mines a seam blander than anything she ever offered us.