Agony and Irony

I bought the new Alkaline Trio album today, about a week after it's official release date. I had previously downloaded the Agony and Irony EP and when the album leaked online in mid June I downloaded it with the intention of buying the official release later. The album itself is, I think, pretty decent. It has certainly grown on me since I initially started listening to it and I think it will more over time (incidentally it was the same with Crimson and, despite them cheating and putting Sadie on there, I now love this album). What has pissed me off slightly about this album is the way in which it has been released.

Firstly I was pretty disappointed to see the 3 songs that were released as the EP also feature on the album. So out of 11 songs, almost a third were already available. Secondly depending on where you buy the album you get different 'bonus' tracks. On one release you just get the standard 11 songs. With the UK deluxe release you get the bonus track 'Burned Is The House' along with some acoustic versions of album songs and 'Maybe I'll Catch Fire' , with the Itunes release you can get 'In My Stomach' and I think with the Australian release you can get another bonus song ('Wake Up Exhausted'?? - correction it is 'Love, Love, Kiss, Kiss - Acoustic'). So despite having gone to a record shop and buying the Deluxe version I still had to then hunt down the other songs that weren't included on this release of it. I'd have thought that in todays world of file sharing it would be in the labels' interest to release the album in way which didn't push fans down this route. This also means that if I want to listen to this album with all released songs on it I'll have to listen it as MP3's (ie lower quality than the CD audio) either on a player or a burned CD. Which is rubbish really.

So for anyone who may be interested here is Agony and Irony with all songs that I know have been released in one way or other:

1. Calling All Skeletons
2. Help Me
3. In Vein
4. Over And Out
5. I Found Away
6. Do You Wanna Know?
7. Live Young, Die Fast
8. Love, Love, Kiss, Kiss
9. Lost And Rendered
10. Ruin It
11. Into The Night
12. In My Stomach
13. Burned Is The House
14. Maybe I'll Catch Fire (Acoustic)
15. Live Young Die Fast (Acoustic)
16. Into The Night (Acoustic)
17. Over And Out (Acoustic)
18. Lost And Rendered (Acoustic)
19. Love, Love, Kiss, Kiss (Acoustic)

On a side note I really like the acoustic versions of the new songs, especially Dan Andriano singing Into The Night. Oh and Wake Up Exhausted (Tegan and Sarah cover) is the b-side to the Help Me single.