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This Addiction - Alkaline Trio
Metascore
70 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
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  1. The A.V. Club
    91
    This Addiction is a chiseled, go-for-broke disc with a modicum of overdubs, melodic flourishes, and even harmonies.
  2. Rock Sound
    80
    Alkaline Trio aren't naïve punk rockers from the Chicago suburbs anymore, as a result this album fails to recapture that innocence but succeeds in creating another strong body of work that the group can be proud of.
  3. Q Magazine
    80
    The title track sets the tone with its exploration of heroin addiction as a metaphor for relationships, but it's "The American Scream"--a gritty, neo-gothic parable--that best illustrates Alkaline Trio's unique take on three chords and the truth. [Mar 201, p.97]
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  4. Billboard.com
    75
    Fans will be pleased to find Alkaline Trio remembering what it's like to be itself.
  5. Absolute Punk (Staff reviews)
    75
    This Addiction promises exactly what the title describes, as most older fans will eat this up.
  6. Spin
    70
    Hooky, blood-soaked bad-love allegories such as "Draculina" and "Dine, Dine My Darling" (check the punny Misfits nod) satisfy like heartburn-inducing comfort food.
  7. Alternative Press
    70
    While This Addiction might not be perfect, it's a more than respectable entry into the band's already sizable canon, proving that though they may be in that rarified group of punk-rock lifers, Alkaline Trio aren't done evolving yet. [Mar 2010, p.89]
    All this publication's reviews
  8. Prefix Magazine
    65
    This Addiction is interesting and ultimately noteworthy because it finds a way to continue on with the band's winning schematics while tweaking the blueprints in such a way that it's almost hard to notice that you've been duped by all the seeming predictability.
  9. Rolling Stone
    60
    Their 2008 major-label bid, Agony & Irony, got bogged down in power-ballad overreach, so with its seventh disc, the group is back to its bleak-Blink-182 roots.
  10. Sputnikmusic
    60
    With its return to a more straight-forward approach, 'This Addiction' does hark back to the likes of 'Goddamnit' and 'Maybe I'll Catch Fire'. Unfortunately, while not being a bad album, it is not a patch on those seminal earlier releases…. Simply a solid recycling of their much-loved sound.
  11. PopMatters
    60
    It's hardly the best of their Asian Man days, but This Addiction is a solid mix of their old and new sounds that is well worth a listen.
  12. Los Angeles Times
    50
    The album is a pointedly minimal production, though -- most tracks are simple guitar-bass-drum affairs with a few tasteful harmonies that put the surprisingly durable hooks up front.
  13. Hot Press
    40
    Aging punks flog a rapidly expiring horse.
  14. Delusions of Adequacy
    40
    Based on the simple songwriting and the nauseating lyrical content, This Addiction is sad, and to the die-hard Alkaline Trio fans such as myself, it will greatly disappoint.
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