Unglued Reviews

Remains is a killer release from Alkaline Trio – and it’s not even an album per se, but rather a collection of 22 of their 7” singles, contributions to compilations, b-sides, cover songs, tracks originally found on split releases, and live versions.

As such, it includes the three songs from their split with Hot Water Music that constituted my first exposure to the ’Trio, one of which (the atmospheric While You’re Waiting) remains possibly my favourite of their songs. But several other tracks here have now been added to the shortlist vying for that title, in particular opening punk rocker Hell Yes and the agitated Jaked On Green Beers, a savage evisceration of a former friend.

The songs on offer cover nearly the entire career of the band, and their chronological order documents not only a change in drummers but also the group’s evolution from the morbid gothic punk of Dead End Road et al to the less urgent but still gloom-infused melodic rock of their later material.

While I favour the first half of the album, the second half does have some interesting experiments such as the string section of Sadie, the atypical shimmering sounds of Don’t Say You Won’t (which evokes The Cure) and the gradually increasing tempo of Buried.

The covers consist of songs originally by Berlin, Hot Water Music and The Damned (a most appropriate choice), and the three live songs include an acoustic version of My Standard Break From Life.

The CD also comes packaged with a DVD, the best part of which is the music videos for five previous singles. The other bonus features also prove marginally better than the main feature documentary, in which the live performances look great but sound sub-par. But while the DVD may not be essential, the elaborate packaging (with liner notes from the band for each track) definitely is.

Owen Heitmann