My Shame Is True

For a journeyman punk-pop band like Alkaline Trio, who have been making melodic, angst-ridden, infectious rock since the late '90s, the band's 2013 album, My Shame Is True, is something of a revelation. Primarily, that revelation is that a band whose songcraft and musicianship might easily have plateaued by now is still bounding ever upward. To put it simply, this album is bonkers good. Produced with a searing, robust intensity by musician Bill Stevenson -- whose own band, the Descendents, laid the groundwork for just the kind of punk-pop music Alkaline Trio have built their career around -- My Shame Is True brings together all of the band's most commercial and personal inclinations to bear on some of the best songs of its career. While naming the album with a cheeky reference to Elvis Costello's classic 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, might seem like a bold move by a band clearly indebted to Costello's own superbly crafted punk-era guitar pop, My Shame Is True quickly dispenses with any i