Track Premiere: Carpool – “Anime Flashbacks”
Posted: by The Editor
Packed with an absurd amount of acrobatic riffs and raw, heartfelt lyrics, Carpool’s Erotic Nightmare Summer makes a strong claim as one of the best emo records of the past few years. It’s a combination of the band’s technical skills—they seriously shred—and the all-encompassing sense of joy and community they bring to their music that makes Carpool stand apart. The song’s narrators may be down in the dumps, but it’s difficult not to have a smile on your face while you scream along to lines like “I guess all that’s left is / that I wish you the best / this shit’s a fucking mess / I can’t believe—god damn” or “day dreaming of your bed / at the bar—not doing the best / I wish that this poison / stayed in my chest.”
Today, the band is back with a sick new track, “Anime Flashbacks,” the first off an EP For Nasal Use Only set to drop on September 23rd through Acrobat Unstable Records. On the song, vocalist/guitarist Stoph Colasanto said “Anime Flashbacks is a deeply personal song wrapped in ambiguous prose so that anyone can apply what they feel to the narrative.” They described the process of For Nasal Use Only as “much different than I Think Everyone’s A Cop and Erotic Nightmare Summer. Mainly because we went into the studio with general structures on the songs but wanted to re-work a lot of parts in the studio. We also recorded it over the course of a couple months as opposed to ITEAC and ENS being recorded in straight through sessions over the course of a week or two.”
The EP finds the group in their comfortable zone of manic, riffy emo, but also branching out with the addition of synths overtop a few of the tunes, as well as a saccharine acoustic pop song, which would be a surprising left turn if Carpool hadn’t already expressed their love of pop music with a killer Sheryl Crow cover. Colasanto described For Nasal Use Only, saying “the essential idea of the new EP was to make a biting satire on what people view as ‘the accepted style of day to day life’. I read an interview with Harvey Pekar once that described his work as an autobiography as it was happening. Something about that really resonated with me. He says ‘the theme is about staying alive, getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It’s one thing after another. I’ve tried to control a chaotic universe. And it’s a losing battle. But I can’t let go. I’ve tried, but I can’t.’ This EP means a lot to all of us. I hope you like it and i hope you maybe get something out of it.”
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Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
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