To say that I missed the boat on the Alkaline Trio in the beginning is a fairly huge understatement. I tend to think of pretty much any band that comes from Chicago as worthless, usually for good reason. But rather than bore you with the origins and history of my antipathy for the Chicago music scene I’ll just point out that in the early part of the decade, when the Alkaline Trio name came up in my company it was usually followed by some sort of disclaimer noting that they weren’t much more than a poor man’s Jawbreaker. This was the word as delivered by trusted friends; such a damning conclusion didn’t exactly send me scurrying down to the record shop.
Having only recently become acquainted with the Trio’s early material I’m more or less inclined to agree with the less than charitable comparison to Schwarzenbach and Co. But by the time I heard the early stuff I’d already had the pleasure of listening to 2003’s Good Mourning a few zillion times, an experience that fills one with a sense of joy and brotherhood of the sort that automatically absolves any prior sins, real or imagined.
Usually when you’re talking about a great record you’re referring to it primarily as the sum of its parts. That’s certainly the case here, but one of the more remarkable things about Good Mourning is that more than half the tracks are of the anthemic, hit-single variety that most bands can’t even manage once per record. It takes until the 7th song before you’re allowed the tiniest bit of a breather; prior to that point, you find yourself trying to absorb it all in slack-jawed confusion as you attempt to make sense of a world in which these tunes weren’t all over MTV and the radio. The first six songs on Good Mourning represent one of the most potent stretches of recorded material I’ve ever heard.
Good Mourning finds the band carving out their own niche, one that owes as much to the Ramones as it does the off-kilter pop of the 90s now termed “emo” by revisionists and dilettantes. Embracing huge, obvious, joyful melodies rather than dabbling in the coquettish employment of same (as is so common in the bigger independent rock circles), the songs accomplish the often-attempted, seldom-perfected task of combining familiar and deservedly beloved chord progressions with a hard-earned melancholy that would put any shoe-gazing emo band to shame.
As is often the case with the near-perfect album, the songs tend to share similar qualities. Morons, snobs and rock critics often view this as a sign of limited ideas, entirely missing the point with a typical lack of embarrassment: great albums are inherently conceptual, whether the people making them are consciously aware of it or not. What follows is the creation of a series of chapters in a book, as it were; there is continuity from song to song, not just thematically, but musically, and in terms of tone, arrangements and production. This is often a process that rises and falls between the conscious and subconscious and generally, though not always, the process reaches its peak in album form at a time when the band has finally found its groove and when the band members are all on the same page creatively (whether they’re on the same page in any other sense is irrelevant). This almost serendipitous convergence of creative elements bleeds from the pores of Good Mourning, and, like all great art, the record stands defiantly vulnerable before the listener who would prefer to sneer rather than to gratefully admit that his doors have been blown clear off.
Matt Skiba employs a pack-a-day vocal affectation that works perfectly with the songs, occasionally offset by the smoother lead vocals of bassist Dan Andriano, who sometimes conjures up images of vegemite sandwiches as his voice has much in common with that of the singer of the 80s Aussie band Men At Work. The album is ably recorded by Green Day alum Jerry Finn, though it’s fairly indistinct on the low end. Joe McGrath’s less-is-more production approach doesn’t do too much to the songs, but then the songs are great enough that they don’t need too much.
What stops it from being a perfect record: The lyrics are well written. The phrasing is above average. The themes and metaphors, however, are awfully silly. By about the fifth mention of blood or coffins or dying you start trying to stifle giggles. That said, it’s still near-perfect, and well worth a purchase with the funds out of the swear jar or lemonade stand.