band were: "doing the photo shoot and we had a completely different idea of what the record was going to look like. And Monica was there doing our styling; she got a bunch of outfits and she did the styling for pretty much all the new pictures for the record. She was there and the photographer was just doing all these different things and he had her stand in. He was toying with these different ideas with just a small portion of her face in the picture and then, lo and behold, she's our cover star. So we thought it looked cool and the people at the art department are in cahoots with the photographer who is amazing. Everybody who worked on the thing was cool and hands on and saw these pictures of her and were asking “who is that?” I said “that's my girlfriend” and they said “that's perfect, we have to use her." I think it looks very cinematic, and that's what we were going for. Once it was coming together, it was like film noir." Release On March 16, 2005, Crimson was announced for release the following month; in the same post, the album's track listing was revealed. The artwork was posted online nine days later. "Time to Waste" premiered through AOL Music on April 16, 2005, before it was released as a Hot Topic-exclusive single (with "We Can Never Break Up" as its B-side) in early May 2005. Following this, Alkaline Trio appeared at The Bamboozle festival and went on a short series of East Coast dates with support from Colossal and Mike Park. The music video for "Time to Waste" was posted online on May 17, 2005, directed by Joe Hahn; with it, the band wanted to make "something simple, yet atmospheric", opting for Hahn's video treatment that shows timing passing. Crimson was made available for streaming through MTV2 on May 18, 2005, before being released on May 24 through Vagrant Records. The following day, they appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. In June and July 2005, they went on an Midwest and West Cast tour with Death by Stereo, Rise Against, Rufio and Thieves Like Us. Following this, the band went on a European tour in August and September, which included appearances at the Pukkelpop, Indoor and Reading and Leeds Festivals. Skiba participated in the Plea for Peace Tour in September 2005.