This Addiction (Deluxe Edition) [Bonus Track Version]

iTunes Review

Alkaline Trio’s seventh studio album finds them returning to Atlas Studios in Chicago with producer Matt Allison, who worked on their early recordings. Here some trumpet and the occasional synthesizer add a Neutral Milk Hotel inspired element on songs like the infectious “Dine, Dine My Darling” and “Draculina.” The opening title-track is all kinds of catchy with a punch-throwing chorus that totally makes up for Matt Skiba’s clichéd comparisons between narcotic addiction and a girl who did him wrong. Much of the album’s lyrical content is based on the negative side of relationships as well as losing loved ones to death and other complicatedly personal themes. But the simplicity in these songs’ structures nicely contrasts their entangled subject matter. Skiba went on record to say that he wanted to employ a less-is-more approach to This Addiction which reduced the amount of guitar overdubs while giving the band an album that could more easily translate to a live setting. The Deluxe Edition boasts four well-performed acoustic versions of album tracks as well as the ‘80s new-wave inspired “Kick Rocks” and the melodramatic “Those Lungs.”