Bored so I'm looking up the album's Wikipedia "Scott Heisel praised the record highly, stating that it "leaps forward as the best album of Taking Back Sunday's career to date" Never been happier with my opinion lol
More Scott Heisel just for fun: "Alkaline Trio From Here To Infirmary (2001) Scott Heisel This is one hell of an EP. Too bad it's a full length. The Alkaline Trio continues it's descent into mediocrity and it seems no one can stop them. It's a damn shame, really. This band used to be spectacular." Lmao
He’s right, From Here To Infirmary is not very good. It’s easily the worst of the 5 albums that it sits in the middle of.
From Here To Infirmary is the 3rd album from Chicago (pop)punk band Alkaline Trio, released in April 2001. Despite being much ballyhooed, from its terribly strained pun of a title to its absolutely awful artwork and grating opening track and lead single, the album sets itself up for failure. Except for a couple great tracks – “Armageddon” and “Crawl” – it’s mainly derivative drivel - “Stupid Kid” - or retreads of their earlier work with the edges sanded off. What was a clear attempt at a more-accessible, then radio-friendly, sound ultimately just ends up lacking.
I have never had a strong opinion of anything Alkaline Trio related and will continue that trend. But, I’m definitively pro “ballyhooed.”
The people that hate FHTI are the ones that wanted them to just write Goddamnit ten times in a row and that part of their fanbase was obnoxious
That’s not at all the case. MICF was a nice progression and Good Mourning is probably their best album and sounds nothing like Goddamnit. FHTI just sounds like a watered down version of what they did on the first 2 records. It’s fine, I’m not mad at them for it, and they recovered brilliantly.
My hot take as a big Alkaline Trio fan concerning those first 5 albums is that I may actually like Goddamnit the least of the 5. It's close between that and MICF. And I like them both! I just preferred them more as they got more Dan-heavy on the latter 3 albums.
I love it but it's easily my least listened to. Trio just had some really toxic "old school" fans and it always seemed like it ended up discouraging their progression from Crimson, even if they had success with it. I just remember them talking about Agony like it was reactionary (pun intended as a parallel with Face To Face) to some dislike for Crimson