Matt Skiba and the Sekrets – Babylon

Alkaline Trio co-vocalist Matt Skiba has led quite the prolific career in his over fifteen plus years as a musician.  In addition to a hefty discography amassed with partner in crime Dan Andriano, he’s released music separately under Heavens, theHELL, and now the subject of this review, Babylon by Matt Skiba and the Sekrets.  While most of Skiba’s side projects have taken nods to electronic experimentalism, this recent incarnation of Skiba’s melancholy brand of emo-rock is curiously close to the Alkaline Trio we’ve all come to know and love.

Even with AFI bassist Hunter Burgan, and current touring drummer for My Chemical Romance Jarrod Alexander serving as backing band, Babylon plays mostly like Trio minus Andriano’s presence.  And you know what?  He does a pretty good job of carrying the whole project on his own shoulders.  I’d liken his independent success akin to the surprising strength that came from The Lawrence Arms frontmen Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan taking a break with Sundowner and The Falcon (or more recently Brendan Kelly & The Wandering Birds).  All ten tracks sound tight as ever, and channel somewhat of a Crimson-era vibe heavy on squeaky production and synthy extras (see “Falling Like Rain”) – something many were wary of back in 2005 but comes across almost tame in today’s heavily auto tuned climate.

Tracks like “Luciferian Blues” or opener “Voices” could have passed as tunes on Alkaline Trio’s next album thanks to Skiba’s trademark dark imagery.  Emotions are explored with morbid reference and juxtapositions in passage like “I’ll burn eternally, home sweet home,” “your love came like an airplane that crashed into the ground,” or “you’ve made a mess, this party dress is torn and stained with blood.”  By this point it might be easy to dismiss Skiba as on lyrical autopilot, but it’s more likely that he simply makes it look easy than a true lack of cleverness.

It should also be mentioned that a couple of tracks started as demos on Skiba’s eerie solo project, Demos, released but a short year prior.  Side by side comparisons of “Haven’t You?” transform from deeply personal to full band affairs, translating surprisingly well onto their new stage.  While I tend to favour the solo versions (these two songs, not the full album, on the whole I found it somewhat overly self-indulgent), the new translations fit in their new context, and play to their own strengths.  “Angel Of Deaf” however serves an exception, in which the full band backing significantly dilutes the original’s personal anguish.  “I can’t hear a god damn thing, above all the screaming… the anger’s deafening” Skiba speaks meekly, trimming down on punctuation, losing much of what made the original somewhat of a present day “Radio.”  Without a reference point the song holds ground, so if you aren’t privy to Demos, I doubt you’ll find issue.

If Babylon proves anything, it’s that if Skiba and Andriano ever pulled a “mid-90’s-Bad–Religion” and went their separate ways, Alkaline Trio could survive the split with Skiba at the helm.  Of all the Trio side projects over the years, Matt Skiba and the Sekrets comes the closest to the main feature.  It doesn’t stray too far from the beaten path, and would fit snuggly alongside any Alkaline Trio fan’s library.  No surprises, but no disappointments either.