I feel like with the big changes for Alkaline Trio – especially ditching (my words, not theirs) Epic and forming Heart & Skull in collaboration with Epitaph – that they would have some change to their sound. As far as I’m concerned, they didn’t; considering they fooking rock, that’s a good thing. This Addiction is the first album on the new label, and it is a solid album at that. It debuted at #11 on the Billboard 200 – highest Alkaline Trio album charting to date… I have sneaking suspicion the band could care less about the Billboard 200, but there it is. Color me struggling for metrics. The opening cut (titled “This Addiction” – go figure) is a little ditty about heroin, which is always a crowd pleaser. Ok, it uses heroin as a metaphor for love, which makes it even better. “Those others were like methadone” is the junky’s version of Eddie Murphy’s line “baby, I fucked her… I make LOVE to you” -> that just cracks me up. Of course, it’s an excellent metaphor, spoken most eloquently by the chorus “Go through withdrawal without you; Sick with this addiction in me.” Seriously. So, to throw down, the album rocks. There are some mold-breaking moments – the trumpet in “Lead Poisoning” and the synthesizers in “Eating Me Alive” (also show up in “Draculina”) – and that’s cool. I’ve read that the album was slated to be some sort of return to their punk-rawk roots. It’s got their signature vocals and full polished distorted sound that we’ve come to love so it begs the question: when did they leave? (Glad they didn’t.)
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