Alkaline Trio – Is This Thing Cursed?


As we move into the Post-Warped Tour era (don’t write letters, we know it’s coming back as a festival in a year or two), it’s a comfort to know that there are still classic 1990s pop-punk bands you can count on. The mid-to-later half of that decade was full of great punk bands with a lot of fire, and some killer melodies. One of those bands was Chicago’s Alkaline Trio, led by founding vocalist/guitarist Matt Skiba, also doing time in Warped mainstay Blink-182. Their ninth and most recent release, Is This Thing Cursed? put out on their longtime label Epitaph, feels like a win early on. In spite of a five-year gap between albums, the enthusiasm of the band can be felt in the songs and was intended to recapture the feel of their earliest work.

The first notes of new music since the closing stanzas of 2013’s My Shame Is True are the piano notes and forlorn refrain in the opening of the title track. It’s definitely the soundtrack to when punks grow up, cope with adulting, and start getting real. Mad real. Once it kicks in, it morphs into a fun sing-along that borders on raging a little at the end, but it’s not here to answer the question it asks, just to do said asking.

The second track and single ‘Blackbird’ is phenomenal, and one of the best tracks on here. Fast-paced, with pulsing ska rhythms on the verse and a slick key change on the chorus. Skiba is not reinventing the wheel here. He is, however, an expert storyteller and uses all the tools in his arsenal as a writer to do it. Hearkening back musically to their origin and a call out to their old HQ, ‘Demon and Division’ is another wistful song about aging up, love, losses, changes and all that. Bassist/singer Dan Adriano and drummer/singer Derek Grant are not only a kickass rhythm section, they sing great harmonies on every song along with Skiba.

‘Little Help’, ‘I Can’t Believe’, ‘Sweet Vampires’ are back to back to back winners in the middle of the album that are short little ditties that will stick in your ear. ‘Goodbye Fire Island’ with its uplifting “hey-ya” call and response vocals pulls off a trick of sorts, an uplifting sounding song that is meant to be sad.

The back half of the album is solid, if unspectacular. ‘Heart Attacks’ and a rabid ‘Throw Me To The Lions’ have a throwback feel, before the acoustic-punk, ‘Krystaline’ brings it all to a close. No song overstays its welcome or has any filler throughout.

Again, if you’ve been a fan of the band already, “there’s nothing new here to see, move along” as one of the early lyrics opines. The Alkaline Trio key to success is that they still write heady songs that capture feelings that are timeless.

7.5/10

KEITH CHACHKES