Growing up sucks

As if it needs to be mentioned to loyal followers, the guys in Alkaline Trio have been on a mission to expand their audience for quite some time. The roots can be traced as far back as 2001’s From Here to Infirmary, when the band moved to Vagrant Records and began to tighten and polish their raucous sound.

And while there were moments throughout their last two albums where their lyrical and pop sensibilities would reassure listeners that this was still the same Trio everybody came to know and love, the departure grew with each passing album.

 With Agony & Irony, their debut on Epic Records, the notion is fitting that the larger the label, the further the departure.

Musically, this is their most polished album to date. Songs like “Help Me” and “Love, Love, Kiss, Kiss” are catchy and well-crafted, with soaring choruses, breakdowns not heard in the band’s earlier work, and their growing obsession of handclaps heard throughout the record.

Their maturation can be stunning at times, most noticeably on bonus track “In My Stomach,” an acoustic song unlike anything previously released by the band, with a walking melody and string orchestrations.

Lyrically, this album is subpar by Trio standards. Lines like “Help me, help me, somebody help me/ Save me from myself” from “Help Me” come off as lazy and cliched. And while songwriters Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano never needed four-letter words to garner an “explicit content” tag, the lyrics here are relatively tame in content.

  While this album does have its moments of pop sensibility and songwriting maturation, older fans can’t help but miss the drunken laments of heartbreak and raucous energy of the band from yesteryear.

The songs explore new effects and sounds, but hearing one exploding chorus after another gets a little tired as the album goes on. While the album’s stronger moments save Agony & Irony from being all for naught.

 This could all be in transition, as the band members may be forging ahead into a new identity. There is room for more to come from this band, and it will be interesting to see where they plan to go from here.