With a Chili Peppers like Funk, smoothed over in glossy Pop colors and an incisor-like bite, Alkaline Trio's latest comes off as a frolic in the park, with a few dangerous curves, they go happily along, effervescent and not an ounce short on metabolism…

A handful of the So. Cal sun, sea and surf effectively tans the ghostly white shade of Emo-like tenacity and its straight arrowed direction, second and third gear safety while the tach stays at a usually harmless minimum, it's music you can sing along with, cruise the strip with or peel your paint with, you decide, it's flexible.

Weezer's a name that keeps popping into my head the longer I listen to this yet I can't bring myself to lay on such a perceived indignity at a band that obviously takes themselves seriously without preaching the gospel according Biafra… now The Offspring I think is a better fit especially right there in the middle of the vocals and melodies and power-driven up tuned riff-play.

The "trio" pictured on the front cover, white-eyed and mentally dilated it would appear, takes the "infirmary" idea to literal extremes upon unfolding the contents, sans the gore of course, there'll be none of that-we're all grown ups here after all, though I'll admit the forceps, hypo and scalpel all get the point across quite convincingly.

Throw 'em back to when Alternative and Grunge were king and they'd fit in, somewhat awkwardly, instrumentally, yes sir, vocally, and I'm wincing to believe that I'm actually hearing the words and groovin' to something called "Stupid Kid" and "Another Innocent Girl" and the Indie-Rock favors of "Steamer Trunk" trying to make sense of why I never made my Senior prom on time…

Released by Vagrant Records: http://www.vagrant.com/vagrant/home/home.jsp