Chicago’s Alkaline Trio have long shown the intelligent face of pop-punk, peppering their naggingly catchy tunes with bayonet-sharp one-liners, punning titles and cobweb-strewn, Tim Burton-esque gothic romance.
My Shame Is True provides everything anyone could ask for from this band. Opener She Lied To The FBI is a pulp-fiction explosion of film noir femme fatales, doomed love and kohl-eyed punk rock choruses.
With vocals shared between crypt-keeping frontman Matt Skiba and the more romantic bassist Dan Adriano, tracks like Kiss You To Death and The Temptation Of St Anthony offer a wry, witty take on bloody love songs that pre-dates the anaemia of the Twilight age, and shows it as the bloodless, sexless joke modern gothic fiction has become. Alkaline Trio’s fangs are still sharp after all these years.
