Deep Cuts #04: Alkaline Trio – 'From Here To Infirmary'
Pulse-raising pop-punk from the cataplexic corners of the Windy City.
Artist: Alkaline Trio
Title: From Here To Infirmary
Release: April 3, 2001
Label: Vagrant Records
Listen here: Spotify | YouTube
It was the dawn of a new millennium. The year was 2001 and things were weird and strange.
Y2K had proven to be nothing but overblown panic. I had just started high school and the cruel kiss of puberty had settled upon my unsuspecting pubescent body. The Fast and the Furious delighted audiences with its tale of sweaty revheads stealing DVD players. South Park hit their creative stride with season five. Limp Bizkit were still riding high off the success of Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000). People sang “Rollin’” non-ironically. Skate shoes, bootcut jeans, gelled hair, and wallet chains dominated MTV fashion.
The TV series Jackass was a commercial hit and kids everywhere idolised Tony Hawk. American Pie 2 gave us the sad college sequel to a beloved (and incredibly problematic) comedy. Blink-182 dropped Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and Sum 41 released All Killer No Filler, before spending the next two decades trying to eclipse it. Bush had already won the Florida recount and 9/11 was soon to be a permanent scar on the cultural consciousness of a generation.
Enter Alkaline Trio’s third LP: From Here To Infirmary. Arguably the definitive record of the band’s early era, this twenty-year-old album has it all: a dark and gloomy cover with an undead, goth aesthetic, superb track sequencing, and wide-ranging lyrical themes that tackle alcoholism, loneliness, and forlorn affection.
From Here to Infirmary was the band’s Vagrant Record’s debut, and the only album to feature ex-Smoking Popes member Mike Felumlee on drums, who would be replaced shortly after by Rocket From The Crypt’s Atom Willard as a touring member before the band settled on Derek Grant as a permanent fixture.
Blasting through twelve tracks in a compact 38 minutes, From Here To Infirmary has the kind of relentless energy and forward momentum that’s almost unparalleled in turn-of-the-millennium pop-punk. The one-two punch of the record’s opening salvo draws the listener in with serrated three-chord riffage, punchy back-beat tempos, and vocalist/guitarist Matt Skiba’s affect-heavy drawl.
The chorus of “Private Eye” takes hyperactive paranoia and spins it into Peter Pan syndrome, a perpetual quest to never grow old, staying young, dumb, and most importantly, fun, forever:
“But at the right place at the right time/
I’ll be dead wrong and you’ll be just fine/
And I won’t have to quit, doing fucked up shit/
For anyone but me.”
Only for “Mr. Chainsaw” to bring the harsh reality of wage slavery crashing back down to Earth, as Skiba laments that “Sleeping is my 9 to 5” and “Cubicles will now suffice.” He then channels his apathy into a subsequently grim verse dripping with suburban nihilism:
“When was it that you sold your life or wasted/
Every bite of that small slice you never tasted?
I guess I should be one to talk/
There’s nights that I can’t even walk.
There’s days I couldn’t give a fuck/
And in between is where I’m stuck.”
And if those lyrical allusions aren’t strong enough for you, the frontman straight-up states the thesis in the track’s harmonised closing hook:
“In case you’re wondering, I’m singing about growing up, about giving in.”
In a particularly dismissive review of the album for Pitchfork, John Dark would stretch the allegorical writer’s crutch of food analogies to their eye-rolling limit:
“There’s quite a bit that Alkaline Trio’s music is not. It’s not challenging, ambitious, or visionary. It’s not clever or self-aware. It's not even terribly skillful. But what it is, is tasty. Pure musical junk food: fast, greasy, and crafted for a general palate. Some people can’t bring themselves to ever go to a fast food joint once they’ve tasted better. Others, like me, well... we shouldn’t, but we do, anyway.”
While Dark was apparently lashing himself for the sin of fast food, my teenage self had no such compulsion. Instead, I lapped that shit up and wanted more of it, gleefully swallowing whole—chewing be damned. The catchy, self-deprecating commiseration on From Here To Infirmary was exactly what my hormone-addled brain needed at that particular point in time. I may not have fully understood the depths of depravity inherent in chasing alcoholism or a daily drug habit, but goddamnit (get it?), I could at least want to relate.
Recorded with Chicago producer Matt Allison—who would go on to engineer and produce landmark albums like The Lawrence Arms’ Oh! Calcutta! (2006) and the stellar On The Impossible Past(2012) from The Menzingers—From Here To Infirmary is a pure distillation of pop-punk’s all-too-familiar libidinal drives.
“Stupid Kid” grabs at misplaced love like a petulant child taking back his toys. “Another Innocent Girl” puts women in the firing line as the victims of weak, insecure men hyped up on some of that “self-pity shit.” Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom though. Skiba & Co occasionally inject some levity into the darkness, playing with wit and tongue-in-cheek lyricism, like on the first verse of “You’re Dead”:
“‘Cause if assholes could fly/
This place would be busier than O’Hare.
There’s proof in the sky/
It’s as thick as our skulls, yet it’s thinner than air.”
And it’s clear that Skiba has a literary bent, too. The album’s title is a play on “from here to eternity,” a reference to the Richard Kipling poem and the 1953 Fred Zinnemann war epic of the same name. As they say: “All is fair in love and war.”
The penultimate track “Trucks and Trains” hints at the goth-tinged melodic mastery that the band would later muster on darker follow-up records like 2003’s Good Mourning and 2005’s Crimson, perfectly timed with the eventual rise and crossover of emo into the mainstream lexicon. With a charging lead riff, crunchy bass tone, and soft-loud dynamic reach that pushes Skiba’s vocals into the stratosphere, it’s a clear album stand-out.
Sadly, From Here To Infirmary isn’t held in such high esteem within the band’s membership. Skiba ranks the album fifth in the Alkaline Trio back catalogue, and bassist Dan Andriano puts the record all the way down at seventh out of nine full-length albums. Ouch.
Still, I’m no longer a confused teenager desperately looking up to my idols. If growing up has taught me anything, it’s that adults are just people too, as prone to fallibility and fault as anyone else. So, I’ll let them have this one. They might be wrong, but I’ll keep spinning From Here To Infirmary long after they're dead.