yeah Mad Season is on par with Temple of the Dog as far as featuring grunge heavy hitters goes, including McCready on both lol. I do think Above is a much better album though
Aic’s highs are the highest highs of any of the big four grunge bands their lows aren’t even really that low just not memorable at all
the chord progressions and melodies of those songs arent as diatonic (within the major or minor scale) as some of their earlier stuff/their peers are, although theyve always been pretty good about that. kinda reminds me of the way someone like ray davies of the kinks did his songs