Having been a fan of the Trio for the past 7 years, I know as well as anyone else how the band have progressed since the explosive raw sound of "Goddamnit" to the more recent polished and smoother sounds of "Crimson". It would be unrealistic to expect a return to the glorious sounds of the first couple of albums, but I've found that every album has it's own highlights. To me, this one's strengths are every Daniel Andriano song. The difference between each of his songs and Matt Skiba's is striking, and that has to also be a slightly negative comment for Skiba's. The Skiba songs are following the tried and tested formula, with the exception being the brilliant "Calling all Skeletons", and yes, we all love the trademark Trio sound, but still we hope for a little bit of magic to blow us away. I wonder if "Help me" and "Live young Die Fast" were what perhaps Skiba felt he should be writing about - it feels as though he's just going through the motions, and only on "Calling all Skeletons"… more »

Having been a fan of the Trio for the past 7 years, I know as well as anyone else how the band have progressed since the explosive raw sound of "Goddamnit" to the more recent polished and smoother sounds of "Crimson". It would be unrealistic to expect a return to the glorious sounds of the first couple of albums, but I've found that every album has it's own highlights. To me, this one's strengths are every Daniel Andriano song. The difference between each of his songs and Matt Skiba's is striking, and that has to also be a slightly negative comment for Skiba's. The Skiba songs are following the tried and tested formula, with the exception being the brilliant "Calling all Skeletons", and yes, we all love the trademark Trio sound, but still we hope for a little bit of magic to blow us away. I wonder if "Help me" and "Live young Die Fast" were what perhaps Skiba felt he should be writing about - it feels as though he's just going through the motions, and only on "Calling all Skeletons" and "I found away" does he do his tremendous song writing ability any justice. Daniel Andriano on the other hand has put so much of himself into the songs that it was obvious from the first 2 bars of each song who's song it was - and I don't think that's the case on any of the other albums. The lyrics on his songs remind me very much of the early Trio days, with the emotional content being comparable to such gems as "Message from Kathlene" , "Enjoy your Day" , "Maybe I'll Catch Fire". and "Crawl". The best song on the album for me is "In Vein", with clever, quirky lyrics being matched by hauntingly melodic, yet dark and edgy music. Genius. "Love love kiss kiss" couldn't fail to raise a smile for anyone who's ever been single for any length of time, and he puts such depth of feeling into the song, practically spitting out the words "You're making me sick". What the album would be like without Andriano's tremendous input, making more impact with his 4 songs than Skiba's 7 is anyone's guess. However, the end result is an album that has to be played repeatedly to experience the rollercoaster of dark, melancholy songs and uplilfting melodies. Enjoy the ride!