My Shame is True… On yer bike, lads
Review: Alkaline Trio – My Shame is True
Published on April 3rd, 2013 | Jonny Abrams
My Shame is True? And so it should be, Alkaline Trio, for this is a veritable tour de force of the kind of Stateside douche-rock that inexplicably retains mass audiences around the globe. You know, guileless high-school rom-com soundtracks penned by men in their late thirties. Bet you can’t get enough of it, huh?
Opener “She Lied to the FBI” hints at the horrors to come with its risible “woah oh oh!” interjections and all-round Green Day-ness, before “I Wanna Be a Warhol” stakes a strong early claim for Worst Lyric of 2013 with “I wanna be a Warhol / Hanging on your wall”, pronounced so douchetastically as to make a rather uncomfortable rhyme out of ‘Warhol’ and ‘your wall’.
Did we say ‘uncomfortable’? We meant ‘hilarous’.
Sarcasm-inviting title aside, “I’m Only Here to Disappoint” is perhaps the least offensive track of the set, its minor key wistfulness coming as a display of relative subtlety – but then Alkaline Trio go and spoil it all by doing something stupid like calling a song “Kiss You to Death” and – AND! – fitting it up with the lines “You’re in my life, you’re in my bones / You’re in my heart, you’re in my soul”. Oh dear, oh dear, and thrice oh dear.
“The Temptation of St. Anthony” is such a grand title for such a non-entity of a tune, the unwitting appositeness of “the damage has been done” its only real source of entertainment, and from thereon in all the tracks blend into one – bar “Midnight Blue”, which distinguishes itself by virtue of sounding momentarily like Guided By Voices before once again ruining it all by crashing into more of the same. In fact, at least half of the tracks sound like they’re in the same key – don’t Alkaline Trio ever get bored of themselves? They bloody well should do.
Front man Matt Skiba has described My Shame is True as being “a love letter to my ex-girlfriend, or an apology note set to music”, so it’s with a hint of regret that we have to give it such a panning. Ultimately, though, it was up to Alkaline Trio not to make an utterly atrocious album…and they failed. Maybe try rubbish dubstep next time?
Rocksucker says: One Quail out of Five!
My Shame is True is out now on Heart & Skull/Epitaph Records. For more information, please click here to visit Alkaline Trio’s official website.
About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
