Alkaline Trio: Agony and Irony

The only difference - it seems - between punk and rock is the BPM, for as Alkaline Trio make the transition from their punk roots to major label arena rock, it's about the only thing that has actually changed.

The same signature style is intact, the shift towards heavier inclusion of synthesizers has been continued and the album is thematically based around depression, despair, envy, hate, alcoholism and jilted love. Business as usual then, one would hope.

Y'know, that's unless you count the fact that a lot of the biting sarcasm and intelligence has been lost from the songwriting, or that the vocals have shifted heavily in favour of Matt Skiba, despite the fact that time and time again, Dan Andriano proves himself the better vocalist on "Agony and Irony" netting for himself some truly memorable choruses and verses such as "Do You Wanna Know?"; despite only getting three of the eleven songs to do so, but more on that later.

Building on the first concern, although the subject matters are the same, the lyrics seem to play it straight. Songs like "Love Love, Kiss Kiss", despite having a rather nice emotional core somewhere in the middle, never seem to reach their full potential due to lines such as "Well, do you find you fall in love with people you're never gonna meet? It's easier than breaking up and crying in the street" which bring their song to a juddering halt each and every time you hear them. The whole shebang feels as if AK3 are holding themselves back somewhat, scared of descending to the depths which provided the postcards for their earlier works.

When producer Josh Abraham was first linked to the album, the trio's fanbase drew a collective gasp. The man behind such well-respected albums as Pink's "I'm Not Dead", Michelle Branch's "Hotel Paper", Velvet Revolver's "Contraband" and Staind's "14 Shades of Grey" would be working on their album. Abraham, though, knows when to step back and let the band speak for themselves, there are a few serious errors in judgement, take one from "Lost and Rendered" where he is compelled to accompany the lyric "I'm running out of time" with the sound of an alarm clock going off.

"I Found Away" meanwhile kicks off with a rather cool sample from a reading of "Dante's Inferno" where the protagonist finds himself in the dark wood of Error. Wise choices like this serve to lend a glistening frame to songs rather than detract from them, it also lends an all-important clue to the meaning behind the song.

Returning to the issue of Andriano's vocals, the highlight of the show is something which the U.S version is sadly lacking, that of the track "Do You Wanna Know?" which makes a break from the usual cracked vocals for some experimentation in the higher octaves of his voice. It's not a great song, but it's different enough to mark it out as a firm contender for star of the show.

"Lost and Rendered" could of taken such an accolade had it delivered on its promise drawn from the rather outstanding intro, the momentum is soon wasted though and we have on our hands another mid-tempo track without a great deal of merit to its name.

There will be enough in "Agony and Irony" to keep hardcore fans interest focused, there's also enough mainstream potential to bring in the kids looking for something a little deeper than Gerard Way is capable of. For the rest of us though this marks a step-down quality-wise. On the plus side it lacks the first quality of its title, but sadly it lacks the second quality also.