Alkaline Trio

Alkaline Trio released a new record this year, their eighth, My Shame Is True. It's decent in the unchanging way their output has been for the last decade plus: Matt Skiba still writes the same song over and over (with increasingly cheesy wordplay), and Dan Andriano still sounds like he's chafing from the miserablist pop punk corner they've painted themselves into.

It's bizarre that their last 3-4 records have passed completely unbeknownst to me, because in the late 90s/early 2000s, they were my favorite band. They were pop punk, but there was something askew; while most of the (admittedly white, male) bands I liked sang about girls breaking their hearts, Alkaline Trio directed the misery inward, describing self destruction and depression in a way that was maybe a little outside of my experience. They were sloppy, and their bass player's ska chops were all over the place, but they were a breathe of fresh air in a scene dominated by the ultra glossy pop punk of bands like Blink-182.

Between '98 and 2000, they released two full lengths and a self-titled compilation of old tracks and EPs. If you're curious at all in them, that's all you need to track down. Even their second record is divisive, containing both their favorite song of mine ("5-3-10-4") and their absolute worst ("Sleepyhead", which shows they didn't yet possess the melodic acumen to deal with a dissonant harmony). So what happened? Longtime drummer Glenn Porter left the band in a manner that rumor suggested was due to either personality conflicts or any of the disgusting scenarios put forth by message boards. Porter wasn't portrayed as a driving songwriting force in the band (a long way of saying he didn't sing any songs), so how did they go from fractured song structures to the paint-by-numbers pop punk of the material following his expulsion?

The situation reminds me of an interview R.E.M. gave during their farewell press tour. Both bands lost a drummer and their subsequent records paled in comparison to their previous work. With R.E.M., that could just as easily be chalked up to age; after all, they were wealthy middle aged men with none of the spark that led to their greatest work. Bill Berry was an equal songwriter with the rest of the band, so maybe he was their secret weapon? That may be true, but I think the bigger issue is the admittance that Berry was vocal in the song arrangement phase, continually chiding the band to make the songs shorter and more concise (the epic intro to "Leave" would never have happened on his watch). I think it's the same unspoken power of the drummer in songwriting that made Goddamnit! and Maybe I'll Catch Fire sound fresher than most late '90s punk, as opposed to the following records rigid verse/chorus/verse structure. The drummer has the power to shape the song and, if they want, get it over as quickly as possible (rarely a bad thing).

Truthfully, Alkaline Trio's songs always followed a pretty standard structure, but what Porter did under the riffs kept them from overstaying their welcome. The most noticeable change is that after Fire, the band stuck to a rigid habit of intro x 4, verse x 4, chorus, verse x 4, outro x 4, etc. That's pretty much the basis for the arrangement of most Western music, basing everything on 4's, but most musicians will add little fills and asides to avoid sterile repetition, or at least to keep themselves entertained when playing the song for the 1,000th time. Porter was constantly scribbling outside the lines, and the result was a lot more interesting than sticking to the rule book.

After Porter left the band, Smoking Pope's drummer Mike Felumlee appeared on From Here to Infirmary. Journeyman drummer Derek Grant filled the permanent role in 2003, and while he's a solid drummer, his workman like style is a testament to his experience as a sideman, where dependability trumps style. His membership is credited with keeping the band together, though I suspect it has more to do with his songwriting style aligning more to the rest of the band that contrasting with it. That's a shame, because history shows it's friction that makes the most compelling music.