Alkaline Trio | My Shame is TrueEmpty Bottle Evenings

Jan092016January 9, 2016January 9, 2016No Commentby Bake

Alkaline Trio | My Shame is True

Posted in Music

After finishing an exhausting list of albums from 2015, I’m sick of last year. Nothing good came out. Music is dead. Everything that I listened to was a dreaful waste of time, Alright, I’m not being entirely truthful. But after listening to a slew of new material I’m not interested in seeing what 2016 has to offer yet. You can take your fresh starts and resolutions and shove it up your butt. Thank you, Stanley Hudson. I’m listening to some old stuff. Familiar artists. Songs I’ve heard before. And for no particular reason I’ve started with Alkaline Trio.

Honestly, the reason is because I was looking for something punk to listen to. I looked for something new, but then I realized punk is dead and just listened to Bad Religion for 24 hours. I checked Bad Religion’s record label Epitaph and was horrified. I’m not one of those old school guys that hates everything for not being punk enough but seeing artists like Avion Roe and The Garden next to Pennywise and Rancid was a little more than off putting. Still, through my horror I searched on and came across a band name I hadn’t thought about in a long time, The Alkaline Trio. They weren’t exactly the punk that I was looking for, but after being punched in the face by boy bands, they were punk enough.

Their last album, My Shame is True, was released in 2013 although I don’t think I gave it a shot back then. Over the last couple days I’ve listened to it a lot and it seems to be their best album in at least a decade. I forgot how much I like their style: the dueling vocals of Matt Skiba & Dan Andriano, the ability to turn sad themes into upbeat songs, the fact that stick with the essentials like guitar, bass, and drum. This album’s songs in particular are catchy without even having to resort to using enough keyboard to be legally considered European. “She Lied to the FBI” sounds like a song I’ve heard 100 times before and today that feels like a great thing.”I’m Only Here to Dissapoint” is really solid, contradicting its title, while “I, Pessimist” is the best 2 minute song I’ve heard all year. “I Wanna Be a Warhol” is classic Alkaline Trio, perhaps a little more optimistic since they are singing about “wanting to be displayed on your wall” instead of bringing a radio into the bathtub. Hey, even I can’t be miserable all the time

My Shame is True is not an earth shattering album but it doesn’t try to be. That might be my favorite part. This was a band knowing who they were and creating the best kind of record they could make. And it’s damn enjoyable. Sometimes music is really that simple. At least it should be. I don’t know if Alkaline Trio will be putting out any more music, especially with Matt Skiba currently part of Blink-182, but they really don’t need to. They’ve already released 8 albums. I’m more than happy to revisit the older stuff rather than having to try something new every damn time.

The Drink: Whatever you old standby is. New things are for the birds.