"I Found Away" skips along to a shuffling drumbeat courtesy of Derek Grant underneath modern rock guitars, while "Help Me" throws everything it has to Matt Skiba's expressive vocals. Opener "Calling All Skeletons" is a perfect pop song - complete with handclaps and hip shakes - tailor-made for soundtracking the reckless house party scene of a prime-time teen drama. It might be slightly disappointing that some of their raw edge didn't return - and the lyrics are effective, if not quite up to the cleverness they've shown in the past - but at the same time, the continued polish isn't necessarily a bad thing there are some pretty great songs here. So the fact that Agony & Irony is overall a moderately paced affair featuring songs more pop/rock than pop-punk isn't such a surprise it's simply a logical progression from Crimson.
Besides, Alkaline Trio already polished things up a few albums ago - the raw, drunken rants of their past didn't make it very far past Asian Man Records.
But with Alkaline Trio six full-lengths into their career, it could be assumed that they would be immune to any sort of big sound alteration on Agony & Irony, their first offering for Epic. Major-label debuts from punk bands usually all follow the same route, and end up sounding polished and produced.
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