Alkaline Trio new album -Blood Hair and Eyeballs- review!

These pop-punk spooky bois from Chicago love themselves a creepy pun, it's kinda their thing.

Alkaline Trio's newest album title Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs has a backstory: it was a phrase used by guitarist Matt Skiba's mom when she was an ER nurse - full moons were always crazy busy in the ER and she'd say "it was all blood, hair, and eyeballs".

Here's the album on Youtube and Spotify if you wanna check it out. Spoiler alert: I highly recommend it ☆

I've listened to it countless times since it dropped on Jan 26th and I have so many thoughts so let's get into the ranking!

S TIER - AMAZING, PERFECT, FLAWLESS, LIFE-CHANGING

• Hot For Preacher - up there with Private Eye & This Could Be Love as one of Trio's strongest openers. Guitar riffs going crazy, insanely catchy chorus, clever song title. I'm obsessed.

• Versions of You - Dan's vocals in the opening verses giving Hot Water Music rawness in the best way. The pacing & the lyrics make it a unique and oddly addicting song. The boys said they listened to The Police a lot when writing the album, it really comes through on this track.

•Scars - Love the guitars in this and the trading off between Matt & Dans vocals. Lyrics hit hard. The chorus feels so nostalgic. This song also healed all of my scars btw.

•Shake With Me - Possibly my #1 favorite on the album. The chorus sends me to a higher dimension. So infectiously catchy, and then that darker beat/instrumental switch-up in the bridge is so unexpectedly cool. I am literally addicted to this song pls send help.

•Break - this one's for the fans! This song sounds straight off of Good Mourning. It's We've Had Enough's bloodthirsty brother. CLASSIC Trio, church bells and all. Love the lyrical references to Trio songs in the chorus. Will be so fun to sing at concerts!

A TIER - REALLY GREAT

• Blood, Hair and Eyeballs - so close to being perfect. I dislike the repeated use of the word 'motherfucking'. Matt's very intentional with his lyrics so I'm sure there's a meaning behind it but to an outsider its kinda corny. The rest of the song is perfect though. It's SO fun to sing. Lyrics are extremely relatable for me. Matt Skiba god of bridges.

• Bad Time - such a sweet song. Matt wrote this for his friend to tell her "it's never a bad time for me to talk to you" ♡ The lyrics are actually based on true stories for Matt. Love how intense the guitars sound on this track. What keeps it from S Tier is the structure & pacing is awkward and hard to digest at first.

B TIER - GOOD

• Meet Me - I disliked this at first bc of the repetitive lyrics & the chorus. However it came together after a few listens and I actually like it, it sounds like Matts side project Heavens mixed with 00s pop punk. Not my fave but it's a unique song I'll give it that!

C TIER - MEH

• Broken Down In A Time Machine - fanbase going crazy for this one. I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing. The lyrics are good, everything else is meh for me.

• Hinterlude - Not a fan of short instrumental songs on already short albums. It acts as a nice opener to BDIATM but meh. NEXT.

D TIER - BLEH

• Teenage Heart - I usually skip this one halfway through so I can jump back to the beginning & listen to Hot For Preacher again XD I see the vision here but the lyrics are a bit too on the nose and the song is kinda boring. Has potential to grow on me but for now... bleh.

No F TIER's to be found on this album!


Overall Thoughts & Ranking - 9/10
Incredible album. It's classic Trio but also strong progression of their sound. The album is so cohesive yet each song has its own unique vibe. Some of these songs are top 10 all time Trio songs for me which is saying a lot at this point in their career. This is the type of album that when it ends, I immediately want to listen again. 

I'm so impressed, so grateful, so proud that this band is still around and putting out kickass music.

It loses a point out of 10, because the while the last 2 songs aren't bad, they don't do much for me. Also there are just a few minor corny lyrics but honestly when it comes to Trio I embrace the Cringe (😉) ♡♡♡