One of my most played albums of the past few years has been Alkaline Trio’s ‘Crimson’. I can’t even begin to put into words just how much I love that disc and it would easily ranked as one of my most listened to opus’. Having said that, I was on tender hooks waiting for the band’s new release. ‘Crimson’ hit the stores way back in 2005 and the band were well overdue for some new tunes. Sure the Trio graced us with the obligatory ‘Best Of-cum-B-sides/rarities’ colleciton in 2007’s ‘Remains’ disc, but seriously that just wasn’t enough to tide this fanboy over.
And so after what seemed like an eternity waiting for new tuneage, Alkaline Trio have been very much hard at work. The result is ‘Agony & Irony’. Enlisting the help of producer Josh Abraham who has erstwhile twiddled the knobs for Linkin Park and Velvet Revolver, to name but a few. It all sounds lush and grand as one would expect, and its tinged in the obligatory Alkaline Trio darkness (afterall, two of the guys are proud members of the Church of Satan). However, I found that this release hasn’t floored me as much as the aforementioned ‘Crimson’. Which isn’t to say that this isn’t a good album. In fact, it is a wonderful slab of catchy and smart pop-punk tunes that will hopefully garner the band a larger following. The usual morbid fascination with death, love, evil, is still permeant throughout the band’s imagery and lyrics and none more-so prevalent than in the first single ‘Help Me’ – a tribute to lead Joy Division crooner, Ian Curtis.
Unfortunately the band gets lumped with all the Emo and pseudo Punk bands that are proliferating the mainstream but there is so much more to Alkaline Trio. Much more.
This is a great album but I feel it just doesn’t quite go near to the magic of the band’s previous releases in ‘Crimson’ & ‘Good Mourning’. They’re gonna have a monster smash one day soon, but it isn’t going to be with this one.
pic: l-r Martin Ain and Tom Gabriel Fischer
In light of the tragic disbanding of the amazing Celtic Frost, no one had heard the other side of the coin until bassist Martin Ain’s following update:
“We are deeply sorry about the cancellation of the summer festivals and the Giger Museum anniversary show this year. We regret the adversity that this caused fans and promoters alike. Tom Gabriel Fischer [guitar, vocals] has left the band, but Celtic Frost is still alive, albeit in a coma of sorts. Franco [Sesa, drums] and I are not going to continue recording or touring as Celtic Frost. This would be preposterous without one of its founding members, the original voice and its defining guitarist. But we are not going to officially disband CF. We hope that there might be a possibility of talking things over and overcoming the differences that caused this schism. Most certainly this will not happen now, but maybe sometime in the future. After all, this is not the first time in the history of this band that things have gone wrong. In the meantime, Franco and I will continue to create music of our own. Under what name or with whom else shall remain open for now. For the time being, we accept Tom’s decision as being better for all of us and we would like to whish all the best for him and his future projects. A thank you is due to all fans and friends for their support in these difficult times. We hope that at least the work of these past years was as pleasurable to you as it was to us.”
MTV has a very nice new image from Where The Wild Things Are, which you can see here. We’re not going to get to see the film, which is said to be doing some re-shoots round about now, for a very long time yet, so enjoy every scrap of material you can get.
Even though there have been numerous rumours about the film not being the terrific piece of work that you’d expect from Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, this remains one of our most anticipated upcoming projects. Spike Jonze doesn’t do dull.
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Frustration and Fury: Take It. It’s Free.
TRENT REZNOR’S home is on the outskirts of Beverly Hills, up a maze of climbing one-lane roads that baffle a rental car’s GPS navigation. It’s perched on a dizzyingly steep slope with a panoramic view of smoggy downtown.
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File this under the ‘I Want’ department: “…Although the punk rock career of the Ramones was short lived, the Ramones were some of the most influential rockers on the planet. Now you can bring home a little punk rocker of your own with this amazing Joey Ramone action figure. The NECA Joey Ramone action figure features the Ramones singer in all his punk rock glory. The Joey Ramone action figure comes complete with figural base for display and microphone stand for added rock star credibility. This rock music action figure stands approximately 7 inches tall and is part of the NECA Ramones action figures series.
Vox Populi