Album review: Alkaline Trio, 'This Addiction'

For an album that takes most of its imagery from foil-darkened heroin dens, Alkaline Trio's "This Addiction" feels more like a sugar high than an opiate.

The goth-tinted punk band, credited for better or worse as one of emo's progenitors, long paired sly, cartoonishly bleak lyrics with downright chipper melodies. "Addiction" is its clearest distillation of that formula in years, and will remind a lot of prodigal fans about singer Matt Skiba's songwriting strengths.

Alkaline Trio has never been as evil as they imagined, and their obsidian sheen has sometimes bogged down their tunes. Not so here: "Dead on the Floor" imagines Buddy Holly's sock-hop rock as a delicious romance-is-murder ballad, and "Eating Me Alive" drags up '80s-era Cure synths that could run your mascara from 100 yards away. "Dine, Dine My Darling" is a witty Misfits homage, appropriate for a band built on two-minute pop tunes about suicide and vampires.

The album is a pointedly minimal production, though -- most tracks are simple guitar-bass-drum affairs with a few tasteful harmonies that put the surprisingly durable hooks up front.

Alkaline Trio may have a mouthful of purloined pills here, but Skiba's tongue is perfectly in cheek on his band's best album in years.

--August Brown 

Alkaline Trio
"This Addiction"
Epitaph
Three stars

Comments

[Shagz McD]

I'm sorry, I disagree with this review.

I don't think this is "the TRIO's" best work in years. Not even close.
AGONY was much more profound (though a little over produced)
and even better still was CRIMSON. REMAINS also blew me away
and has a permanent home in my sunvisor CD holder.

This album features alot of shoehorned lyrics and really repetitive subject matter. I think DAN says the word "rain" about 60 times on the few tracks he sings lead for.

Don't get me wrong, this album is a lot better than most of what the record industry is shoving down our throats these days. But it's not what I've come to expect from a band that has, not one, but two of the best songwriters I've ever heard.

I recomend getting the bonus version of this album, you can get it on sale at FYE for $11.50. It has a few bonus tracks that should have appeared on the main album.

[whereisjohnconnor?]

good review

"Agony" was definitly overproduced in my opinion, but alk3 is still alk3 and some fans liked the poppier sound. a good amount have also missed their older sound, and "this addiction" brought it back while still maturing. sure it hasn't returned completely, it'd be wrong to expect that, but they have lost that pop feeling, at least to me.
theyve been in a slump since "Crimson", and im glad theyve finally got out of it. im gonna agree with the review and say this is their best work since the Asian Man days.
dan says rain 4 times in 'off the map', once in the opening verse, and the rest in the chorus, so idk a chorus is supposed to be repeated.
he says it not at all in 'dine dine my darling', and once in a verse of 'Fine', giving us a total of 5 overall

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