Matt Skiba: guitar/vocals
Dan Andriano: bass/vocals
Derek Grant: drums/vocals

"Save me from myself/Save me from this hell."
- "Help Me"

Love. Alcoholism. Depression. Fire. Drugs. Blasphemy. Death.

Those are the usual song topics covered by Alkaline Trio through their previous five albums, starting with 1998's now-classic Goddamnit on pioneering indie Asian Man Records through 2005's Crimson, the band's last album for Vagrant Records.

And while you can expect more of the same on Agony and Irony, the band's major label debut for Epic Records, produced by Josh Abraham [Linkin Park, Slayer, Atreyu, 30 Seconds to Mars] at his L.A.-based Pulse Recording, founding member Matt Skiba, bassist/co-songwriter Dan Andriano and drummer Derek Grant insist they have found a light at the end of the tunnel this time.

"That dark side always seems to come through," says Grant. "We're all happy individuals with families now, so you're not going to hear too many songs about heartbreak or the girl that got away anymore. But we have friends going through tough times, and both Matt and Dan are influenced by those sorts of situations."

Forsaking the wide-screen production of Crimson for a streamlined return to punk basics with an eye towards the anthems of '80s new wave stalwarts like Billy Idol, The Cars, Pat Benatar, Gary Numan and, yes, Def Leppard ("The stuff Mutt Lange did with them is amazing," says Matt), the songs on Agony and Irony trace a journey towards salvation. The concept was sparked by the likes of Dante's Inferno (the spoken-word intro that starts the album) and Joy Division's Ian Curtis (Skiba penned the first single, "Help Me," after being blown away by the recent Anton Corbijn biopic, Control.)

"There's a heavy theme of duality, light and dark, life and death, on the album," says Matt, who says Agony and Irony is a pun on the Paul McCartney/Steve Wonder song "Ebony and Ivory," like such other plays on words as 2001's From Here to Infirmary and 2003's Good Mourning. "We tried to make it all about the individual songs, and we really took the time to craft each one in the studio."

"We felt it was time to reassess everything we'd done," adds Derek. "We went in without any preconceived notions and didn't record in a liner fashion. We kind of jumped all over the place which, for three guys with attention deficit disorder, was perfect."