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.
