The most remarkable thing about the Alkaline Trio's music is its utter simplicity. You won't find a lot of overdubs, cryptic lyrical innuendoes or wiry electronic blips and drones on Maybe I’ll Catch Fire. What you will find, however, are 10 potent blasts of straightforward, confessional, anthemically lovesick punk rock.
To truly enjoy the Alkaline Trio's music, you need to ignore all the Smoking Popes comparisons currently being heaped upon the band. The bands share a drummer -- end of story. Alkaline Trio come blazing out of the Windy City with their own sound, which combines explosive guitars, hypnotic bass lines and rampaging percussive onslaughts. Add to that Matt Skiba and Dan Adriano’s bitter lyrical tirades about death, drinking, fear and lost love and you have something far more original than a Popes knockoff.
At times the band teeters between spiteful vengeance and lovelorn apology...within the same song. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the sweetly snarling guitar tornado of "Fuck You Aurora." Other songs find the Trio just plain pissed off. Be it the frantically circling guitars and double-time rhythm of "Keep ‘Em Coming" or the hectic straight riffing, smoldering melodic hook and dueling vocal hiss of "She took Him to the Lake", this is the channeled sound of pure hate. The disc’s parting shot, the effortless swagger of "Radio", couples chiming-yet-overdriven guitar flourishes with conversationally depressed lyrics to become the most perfect "Fuck off -- I just-got-dumped" anthem ever.
Anybody who has ever been dumped, drunk or lovesick will be able to relate to Maybe I’ll Catch Fire, and I think that's what makes it so endearing. Listening to the album, you'll look in on lives not all that different from your own, hear lines you only wish you had thought of and think back to that girl/guy you swore was the one. Maybe I’ll Catch Fire is nothing too fancy or ground breaking; it's just a punk rock album that speaks from the heart about matters of the heart -- and about the heavy drinking that sometimes accompanies them.
