Damnesia is album number eight for everyone’s favorite battery-powered punk band, the Alkaline Trio. Loaded with acoustic versions of some of their most well known and beloved songs along with two new ones, “Olde English 800” and “I Remember a Rooftop”, the collection also includes a cover of the Violent Femmes’ “I Held Her in My Arms.”

The new take on old songs definitely gave a fresh feel and mood to some of their classics. ‘This Could Be Love” and the piano-led ‘The American Scream” has been transformed into dark and moody ballads, while others like “Mercy Me” just feels like straight-forward acoustic interpretations.

Though this could be considered an acoustic “Greatest Hits” it just feels like it was an unnecessary stop-gap release. The few songs that have been completely re-imagined also happen to be the best ones on here. I had only wished that they didn’t play it safe so much and took more chances experimenting with their sound.

Trio fanatics will welcome this into their collections and might get a few spins out of it, but it’s not really worth it for anyone else.

-Henry Chung-

This post was written by:

Henry Chung – When Henry’s not busy updating this page and speaking in third person, he’s busy shooting and editing pictures from concerts and designing logos for bands.