Earlier this year, I got to go to my first Alkaline Trio concert. It was the middle of August at the House of Blues in Boston, and the band was on tour to support their soon to be released ninth album (Is This Thing Cursed?). They played about 2 to 3 songs from each album, along with a personal favorite, "Warbrain", but the thing that stood out to me was the show's special treatment of Good Mourning tracks. In total, they played 5 songs from their 2003 LP ("This Could Be Love", "We've Had Enough", "One Hundred Stories", "Every Thug Needs A Lady", & "Blue Carolina"), and while they didn't play my favorite ("Blue In The Face"), it was a really nice treat to hear so many other favorites.
When I talk about albums I love from start to finish, Good Mourning is one that I find hard to shut up about. It was their first album with long-time drummer, Derek Grant, and their second on Vagrant Records and with legendary producer, Jerry Finn. A 12 track LP that showed off just how fucking dark Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano can get, it's one for the punk rock history books.
The album opens with "This Could Be Love", a fast-paced ballad that sees Skiba singing about fetishes involving flames, being tortured and murdered, and recounting the process step-by-step. With a few references to the band's home (Chicago), it's by far one of the darkest songs that the trio has ever recorded, and gives a very good idea of what the band is about.
While Skiba sings about torture fetishes, Dan goes more into themes of sadness and heartbreak. Looking at a song like "Emma", we see a relationship that started beautiful, but lead to a lot of pain, and eventually treating it with Vicodin and the methods for killing vampires and werewolves. We see a love that delved into something a lot more horrific, which shows how great of song writing chemistry that Dan and Skiba have with each other.
One of the strongest songs on Good Mourning is the album's lead single, "We've Had Enough". Just the idea that the song they chose for the radio was an anti-radio song was absolutely amazing; it's fast, loud, and makes you want to just listen to what you like instead of listening to what the radio tells you to like. And on top of that, they throw in a reference to the Misfits' Walk Among Us, so that's pretty fucking cool.
Seeing as I praise this album so much, you can probably imagine how shocked I was to hear that it was Skiba's least favorite. In an interview with Kerrang! Magazine, he got asked to rank each of Alkaline Trio's albums, and put Good Mourning right at the bottom. Granted he says that a lot of his favorite songs come from the album, it was more about the process of making it. He was struggling with a lot of things in his life, and was having throat problems, which made it hard to sing.
While I understand his perspective on it, I think Skiba singing with a bad throat actually gave the album a bit more uniqueness. His voice definitely has a distinctness to it on this album, and the idea of a sick person constantly singing about these dark themes actually fits really well with their style in my opinion. So hats off to Matt Skiba; he soldiered on in a tough time in his life, and for that, we are truly grateful.
Another thing that really surprised me about Skiba's opinion on the album was when I found out how Dan ranked the albums. He was the complete opposite, and put Good Mourning right on top. He definitely got why Skiba wouldn't be too fond of it, but points out how it encompasses all of the aspects of Alkaline Trio's music; love, horror, depression. In his eyes, it's all there, and all put together really well.
I think I've probably given enough context to my opinion, so I'll start to wrap things up. Basically, if you're a punk rock fan and haven't listened to this album, DO IT! Pretty much just listen to any of Alkaline Trio's albums; none of them disappoint, but Good Mourning will leave you with an album that you'll want to hear on repeat over and over again.
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