You Make Me Want to Cry Alone in the Dark

Alkaline Trio

Crimson 

2005, Vagrant.  

Produced by Jerry Finn

Dan Andriano - bass, vocals

Matt Skiba - guitar, vocals

Derek Grant - drums

Singles:

• Time to Waste/ We can Never Break Up/ Dont Say you Wont

• Mercy Me/ Buried

• Burn

There was a time when I was into horror punk.  Punk with a creepy dark edge to it, like the Misfits, the HorrorPops, AFI, and Alkaline Trio.  

I want to start out by saying that I like this band, probably more than they deserve.  They're from Chicago, I have family there.  They have a cool three-piece band with two singers whose voices compliment each other.  And for the most part, they are capable of writing pretty decent poppy punk songs.  

The album prior to this is called Good Mourning, and I cant say enough good things about that album.  Perhaps it will make an appearance on this blog in the future.  As far as pop-punk goes, Alkaline Trio definitely knew how to do this right, catchy tracks with singable melodies and angsty lines, but with some maturity, unlike Blink 182 who still thinks they're 16, and they did it without going too far into the woe-is-me-emo-hipster-realm.  

However, Crimson let me down.  The first track, also the first single, and the first video, Time to Waste, is fantastic!  and then the rest of the album disappoints.  I probably should have known just by looking at the cover.  Alkaline Trio had fallen into the same trap as Blink 182!  They became sentimental and slipped into the trendy emo void, as evident by the black and white cover of half a woman's sad face, and half of a nicely dressed, but miserable looking dude.  Suddenly I was listening to a morbid version of Jimmy Eat World.  I hated every track on here except for Time to Waste and Back to Hell.  Potentially good songs like Sadie are ruined when they stop the flow of the song to add spoken word nonsense.  

Even the title of the album is lame.  I heard that it was almost titled Church and Destroy.  They should have gone with that, way more interesting than Crimson.  

Skip this one...  but buy Time to Waste and Back to Hell on iTunes or something.  Agony and Irony (2008) is better.  Good Mourning (2003) is the best.  and if you can find the BYO split they did with HotWaterMusic, get it.