Swim Into The Sound's 2024 Song Showdown

(Editor’s Note: for maximum impact, please read this introduction in your best wrestling announcer voice)

Folks, it’s been a long, emotional year, but it’s all been building to this: Swim Into The Sound’s 2024 Song Showdown. This is a knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle brawl for the title of 2024’s best song. Many a hope and dream will be shattered today as only a single, shining beacon of collective agreement can be awarded the fame, the fortune, and the title of Swim Into The Sound’s 2024 Song Showdown Champion.

36 songs enter, only one leaves. These tracks are ready to hop in the ring to see who comes out on top. It’s a royal rumble of epic proportions, and we’re getting the privilege of watching it unfold live right here, right now. So grab your popcorn, listen along, and enjoy as the greatest artists of the year go head-to-head for your entertainment.

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36 | Linkin Park – The Emptiness Machine

Coming back from your lead singer’s death is a challenge that few bands have undertaken without alienating their audience. As such, Linkin Park’s first single with new vocalist Emily Armstrong, “The Emptiness Machine,” had a lot to prove. Cleverly, this one starts with bandleader Mike Shinoda taking vocals, reminding fans that this is still the Linkin Park they know and love before Armstrong comes in half a minute later to make her first impression. It’s an introduction that works for me; impactful as if to say that, although things will be different now, it’s all being done in honor of the legacy that’s been established. Throughout the song, you can feel that it was written eight years ago, intended for the late Chester Bennington, and it lands as a reminder that death need not be the end of all things good.
- Noëlle Midnight

35 | HiTech – SPANK!

I’ve mostly listened to NTS Radio this year and have fallen in love with it. I’ve had a lot of fun learning about house, techno, and all the subtle subgenres. “SPANK!” is the ghettotech hit of 2024 and represents all of what I’ve been listening to most of my days this past year. It is sticky, manic, and, above all, a perfect embodiment of modern electronic music.
- Kirby Kluth

34 | Charli xcx – Girl, so confusing featuring Lorde

Easily one of the most noteworthy collabs of the year, Charli xcx and Lorde linked up to work it out on the remix of this mid-album BRAT cut, and things were never the same again. Perhaps it was hearing Lorde over a synth-pop beat for the first time in years, perhaps it was hearing these two speak honestly about the way society pits women against each other, perhaps it’s just a humanizing look at two of my generation’s greatest popstars, but “Girl, so confusing featuring Lorde” made me weepy, and I think that’s beautiful.
- Taylor Grimes

33 | Katie Gavin – Inconsolable

MUNA’s frontwoman takes a breather from windows-down, upbeat, synthed-out queer anthems to deliver a tender and thoughtful 90’s-ified solo effort. Among the many highlights, “Inconsolable” elevates Gavin’s unshakeable vocals (and violin playing) on a cloud. “We’re from a long line of people we’d describe as inconsolable. We don’t know how to be helped. We’re from a whole huddle of households full of beds where nobody cuddled. We don’t know how to be held” has lived in the front of my brain since the moment I heard it.
- Caleb Doyle

32 | Charli xcx – 360

The conceit of Charli xcx’s “360” is simple: everywhere you turn, there she is. For an entire season of 2024, that was true. BRAT achieved an omnipresence seemingly unachievable in our fractured cultural landscape, and outside of all the post-post-irony and the chartreuse low-bit memes and the wilted coconut trees, its success came from the fact that it’s very first track is just that good. Impeccably produced (by A.G. Cook, Cirkut, and Easyfun) and tonally potent, its synthetic bounce and infectious melodic pattern - so sugary, so sour - destined it to be stuck in the heads of seemingly everyone with a pulse. It makes you wish pop weren’t so damn ephemeral, but I guess that’s also what makes it so Julia.
- Rob Moura

31 | Magdalena Bay – That’s My Floor

We all know it’s been a year for Mag Bay: a TikTok explosion, a Grimes feature, a Jimmy Kimmel spot. They seem to be getting a whiff of the Tame Impala treatment as far as psychedelic rock-meets-hyperpop is concerned. While “Image” is the single getting all the attention, I’d argue the song of the year is tucked away on the Imaginal Disk B-side. Equal parts prog rock grit, psych jam, and pure electronic soundscape, “That’s My Floor” brings together everything wonderful about Magdalena Bay and ties it all up in three and a half iconic minutes. It’s a song that can soundtrack everything from the first day of grad school to the ride home from a tougher-than-usual therapy appointment (confirmed through personal experience). Also, for what it’s worth, Album Cover of the Year.
- Cassidy Sollazzo

30 | Kabin Crew – The Spark

The last quarter of this year has been so abysmal and apocalyptic that some people may have forgotten that a group of Irish schoolchildren composed one of the most joyous and uplifting grime rap songs of 2024. Created as part of the Rhyme Island Initiative, celebrating the National Day of Youth Creativity, “The Spark” is a two-and-a-half minute b a n g e r, with several kids getting a few bars each that could go toe to toe with any underground posse cut this year. Lines like “If you’re proud of who you are and what you do, shout it” and “I create my own way of feeling super slay” feel like evergreen mantras we could all use in our lives these days.
- Logan Archer Mounts

29 | Foxing – Hell 99

Few moments in music this year have been as electrifying as the first ten seconds of “Hell 99” by Foxing. The track is a downright hardcore rager from the St. Louis indie rockers, a bone-jolting pivot that they pull off beautifully as the members excavate all their pain and frustration with the current millennia. Ultimately, nothing captures that cocktail of dread and dismay better than screaming along, “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!”
- Taylor Grimes

28 | Rosali – Rewind

In its best moments, love erases every regret, worry, stressor, and annoyance. It feels like you can time travel through your life and off into the infinite unknown. For five minutes, Rosali captures that very feeling on “Rewind” with high-flying vocals and a beautiful chorus that encases love in amber and traps it in the groove of a vinyl record. 
- Taylor Grimes

27 | Superchunk - Everybody Dies

"Everybody Dies" dropped all the way back in January, and after a year of listening to great new releases, I still haven't found a better-sounding chorus. It's a track that shows Superchunk aren't just relevant for their influence; they're still right in the thick of things, consistently proving themselves to be one of the best guitar bands going. Julio Franco-type longevity. Long live Superchunk.
- Josh Ejnes

26 | Blood Incantation – The Message

If you’ve participated in any online music community in the last five years, or you’re just a big old nerd like me, you’re at least tangentially aware of Blood Incantation. If not in name, then at least by their now iconic unreadable logo, one of the best of the modern death metal era. The Denver progressive death metal band seems to turn more heads with every new release, and their latest Absolute Elsewhere is no different. Anchored by two 20+ minute, album-side-length, multi-movement tracks, Blood Incantation cements their place as master purveyors of their craft. Absolute Elsewhere’s second half, “The Message,” has everything you want, from blistering metal passages to David Gilmour-inspired swells, and it’s all topped off with a collaboration with Tangerine Dream’s current lineup. You can listen to it broken up into three chunks, but I guarantee once Part I begins, you’ll be convinced to finish the whole piece.
- Logan Archer Mounts

25 | Ok Cowgirl – Larry David

Ok Cowgirl start this song with the couplet “Everything is fucked / To the left to the right,” and that’s a phrase I found myself coming back to time and time again throughout the back half of the year. With production from Alex Fararr and a video that sees the band members donning gray-haired bald caps, “Larry David” spins everyday frustration into something more good-natured because if we can’t laugh, what else is there?
- Taylor Grimes

24 | Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us

From the over-the-top costumes to trash talk, hip-hop and wrestling go hand in hand. The great rap war of 2024, Kendrick vs. Drake, ignited an unbridled jolt of electricity to the genre. Sparking one of the most celebrated diss song finishing moves of all time in “Not Like Us.” Kendrick, with sharpshooter-like precision, lyrically assaulted the biggest brand name in hip-hop with a vicious anthem that made his opponent tap out almost instantly from humiliation. The cultural impact, plus the overall entertainment of the song, became sweet chin music to my ears. 
- David Williams 

23 | Combat – Stay Golden

Maybe I just live close to Baltimore. Maybe my keys are on a Text Me When You Get Back keychain. Maybe I am biased because I reviewed the damn album, but for the love of god, how many times do I have to say it? Broken-hearted kids don’t party like their parents did in the 90s!!!!! Combat utterly tore out of the gates with the titular single off their album, Stay Golden. This is a cartoon tornado of a song, a total jangly rush that feels like space and time are ripping apart around me. It’s an immediate anthem for jaded Gen Zers like yours truly and an absolute barnstormer at any live gig (this is me telling you that you have to see Combat live). And if you don’t listen to me, that hurts, but at least I still got my Black Flag t-shirt.
- Caro Alt

22 | Truman Finnell – Palm of Thorns

I love all forms of weird, vaguely unsettling media, from Wes Anderson’s films to Ray Bradbury’s short stories, and “Palm of Thorns” by Portland artist Truman Finnell fits neatly into that niche. The song paints a visceral image of meeting someone in an orchard, highlighting the rotten fruit on the ground “writhing with larvae” as it starts to “move on its own.” The music is a skillfully woven blend of delicate acoustic guitar, field recordings, and elements of genres such as ambient, folk, and skramz. Each listen reveals another layer of the strange, fantastic, and eerie world of Truman Finnell - and I simply can’t get enough.
- Britta Joseph

21 | Merce Lemon – Will You Do Me A Kindness

Suspiciously left off Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, Merce Lemon released “Will You Do Me A Kindness” as a standalone single early on in the year, perhaps because she knew the six-minute track was a meal all its own. This song signaled an immediate level-up from Merce’s previous work, a naturalistic indie rock update, complete with a guitar solo that incinerates me every time I hear it. Point the sun right into my flesh, baby. 
- Taylor Grimes

20 | Merce Lemon – Backyard Lover

To a dude like me, the backyard is a holy place. I spent most of the summer back at my parent’s house in Oregon. I’d get off work, sit in a big, red Adirondack chair, crack a book, stare at the clouds, and enjoy a smoke or a beer while listening to Merce Lemon’s singles. It was a calming way to unplug from work, center myself, and reflect on the day. The slow-simmering build and searing guitarwork of “Backyard Lover” proved to be an utterly transfixing way to score these moments of internal peace. The backyard is abundant, and so is the world.
- Taylor Grimes

19 | Geordie Greep – Holy, Holy

On August 10th of this year, Geordie Greep announced the split of black midi with an unceremonious series of comments on an Instagram livestream: “No more black midi / It’s over / Over.” Ten days later, he released “Holy, Holy.” Recorded in Sao Paulo with an impressive cast of Brazilian musicians, Greep’s narrator puts on the guise of a swaggering womanizer. He’s a confident man! He’s a regular here, but he’s well-traveled and debonair! He fucks more than he breathes, and the whole world knows it, too! And then, over the jazz-rock, salsa-inflected, horn-dense instrumental, he draws back the curtain in a litany of instructions and entreaties to his unnamed partner. Can you kneel down all night so I look taller? Would that be all right? Can you meet me in the bathroom, he pleads, can you put your hand on my knee? “How much will that cost? How much will that cost?” 
- John Dietz

18 | Lily Seabird – Waste

Blessed with an Adrianne Lenker-like timbre and the heft of a shoegaze superstar, Lily Seabird taps into some immortal melody with “Waste,” crafting a colossal and crushing track that never fails to mystify me no matter how many times I listen to it—a lament for the ages.
- Taylor Grimes

17 | Jimmy Montague – Here Today (Without You Tomorrow)

Jimmy Montague’s effortlessly complex and effusive arrangements rarely sound as cool as they do on “Here Today (Without You Tomorrow).” With a propulsive piano pushing it forward, the song feels like running through an endless series of hallways, sure that each new door will lead to some sort of resolution. Like Royal Scam-era Steely Dan, this yacht rocker takes on an ominous tone as Mr. Montague chases – or runs from – a long-distance breakup. This song is so good that I don’t even mind that it has a wah-wah guitar solo – and I fucking hate wah-wah. 
- Joshua Sullivan

16 | The Civil War in France – Maybe Next Time…

Chiptune isn’t nostalgic for me. I have no memories of Pokemon Silver's soundtrack, despite it being my first video game, because the volume on my Gameboy was always off out of fear my dad would tell me to shut it down. Today, when I want to play Halo, I ask my girlfriend if it’s okay because I don’t want to make her put in headphones, deprive her of access to the TV, or make her go to the other room. I have never wanted to be in the way of someone else’s desires, even if it deprived me of what I wanted or needed. It’s why I relate to Evangelion’s Shinji and why “Maybe next time…” from The Civil War in France’s There You Are ! is one of my favorite songs of the year. When Eva Hammersla screams, “So maybe I’ll try harder to be a better person / so maybe then I’ll be, I’ll be happy with me,” I want to turn back time and raise the volume slider for little Lillian. Maybe then she’d advocate for herself.
- Lillian Weber

15 | Jeff’s World – Someday

You ever spend a day scrolling through the digital morass, watching the soulless husks that run the planet bloviate, fuck things up, rinse and repeat? You ever feel that gnawing feeling you’re powerless to stop it all? Appetite waning, thoughts racing, not enough beer in the world to drown the endless flurry of sounds and images fighting for your attention? Sometimes, the only solution is to let it all out, and on “Someday,” Jeff’s World offer up three minutes of primal scream therapy. For what it’s worth, I hope the Kool-Aid served at the end of the world is blue. 
- Jason Sloan

14 | Carpool – Thom Yorke New City

“That’s why I try to keep the bottle half full” is a perfect summation of Carpool’s mixture of sad-sack neuroticism and unabashed sentimentality. “Thom Yorke New City” rounds out their excellent LP My Life In Subtitles, wraps up everything you know about Carpool so far, and hints at the shape of ‘pool to come with its dime-turn structure. Extra points for the blissed-out post-rock bridge, reprising the opening track to give a sense of distance traveled. It also just rocks real hard. 
- Joshua Sullivan 

13 | Florist – Riding Around In The Dark

“Riding Around In The Dark” effortlessly arrives partway through I Saw the TV Glow, rising like the moonglow reflected off neon pink chalk caked on the driveway. Emily Sprague and company summon the brief apocalypse of twilight, faces coming and going, burbling electronics shrouding gentle strums. There’s a glum mundanity to the way they sing of the world’s end, blushing with awe and fear. Without changing up their familiar naturalism, Florist still conjure vibrant, nostalgic sounds.
- aly eleanor

12 | MJ Lenderman – Pianos

“Pianos” might be the saddest song MJ Lenderman has ever written. The track was included as one of the 136 that make up Cardinals At The Window, a benefit compilation whose proceeds go to Hurricane Helene relief in Western NC. Released just a month after Manning Fireworks, it’s unlikely that Lenderman planned to release this song so soon, but truth be told, I’d take “Pianos” over just about any song on that album’s B-side. Sonically, it’s a somber, slow-walking reflection that builds to a searching, meditative guitar solo. Structurally, the song’s 8-minute runtime harkens back to the laid-back ramble of Lenderman’s self-titled album. Essentially, he gives the listener enough time to ponder, wander, freak out, have an epiphany, cry, and then gently return to earth with a newfound direction. 
- Taylor Grimes

11 | Fontaines DC – Favourite

Did you know I could claim the dreamer from the dream? Hot off the panting, Korn-inspired, anxiety attack that is “Starburster,” Fontaines DC released “Favourite,” another experimental single off their new album, Romance. This time, instead of capturing a new sound, Ireland’s hottest rock band tried to capture a new feeling. Originally 12 verses but cut back to 4, “Favourite” is an attempt at a truly endless love song. It’s trancey, it’s circular, and it’s as desperate as it is sentimental. They swear up and down that they didn’t want to create the next “Champagne Supernova,” but would it be so bad if they did? I’ve listened to it like 200 times, according to last.fm. 
- Caro Alt

10 | Ther – a wish

I have a sincere hope that godzilla isn’t the final album from Philadalephia’s Heather Jones. Their faith-damaged introspections and gorgeous wordplay find a noisier yet no less ornate home on “a wish,” the first track and lead single. It’s a pristine encapsulation of a wandering mind, hopeful and determined to field whatever the dawn may throw at us.
- aly eleanor

9 | This Is Lorelei – Dancing In The Club

I love songs about dancing. I love songs with inventive instrumentation. I love Nate Amos, better known as This Is Lorelei. “Dancing In The Club” was the first single released for the first genuine This Is Lorelei album, and I can’t think of a better introduction to the project. A song about fucking up, being a loser, and giving all your diamonds away. Infinitely relatable.
- Taylor Grimes

8 | SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE – 1/500

I was hooked on SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE’s “1/500” immediately upon hearing the opening notes – a looping intro that segues into hypnotic layers of guitar and pulsing drums. Compared to the rest of their catalog, “1/500” is a fairly straightforward indie pop song, but many of the band’s signature touches are present and help the track stand out. The often-anxious delivery of vocalist Zack Schwartz and abrupt starts and stops from the rhythm section are contrasted with loud, catchy melodies. There’s an almost sinister tension underlying the music, and at times it pierces through the traditional elements with dissonance or the sudden absence of noise. I believe one of the marks of a great band is the ability to write accessible pop songs while staying true to their sound, and SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE does that and more here.
- Nick Miller

7 | bonus – Lose

I checked out “Lose” back in February because of a tweet claiming that Bonus sounded like an emo version of Liquid Mike. I was initially dubious of the claim (despite the poster’s clarification that he wasn’t on some bullshit), but it was very accurate. I’ve had “Cuz I’ve been waiting for so long for you to let go” playing repeatedly in my head ever since. I think the term “rips” has been a bit overused lately, and propose that this song be put in the dictionary as the prime example of what rippage really means. Going to make a supercut of skate clips and Pavel Datsyuk highlights set to it, which I assume will make my phone explode. Just thinking about the guitar sound gets me so hyped. Great song. 
- Josh Ejnes

6 | Cheem – Charm Bracelet

The monarchs of Nu-Pop Cheem came out swinging with their second single of the year, “Charm Bracelet.” Equal parts bubbly fun and heavy-hitting hooks, I can't think of another song from this year that pulls me in quite like this one. Every time I hear the buttery production and seemingly endless sonic layers, I find myself smashing the replay button before the song is even finished playing. Cheem has this natural ability to meld together the warm feelings of nostalgia with the effortlessly cool swagger of the cutting edge, and “Charm Bracelet” is the shiniest example of that marriage. Running short of even two minutes, “Charm Bracelet” proves you don't need a lengthy song to make a lasting impact.
- Ciara Rhiannon

5 | MJ Lenderman – She’s Leaving You

“It falls apart. We all got work to do.” Brother, ain’t that the truth. The lead single to MJ Lenderman’s breakthrough record isn’t just great because of the humanity that hides at its center; it’s great because it delivers that revelation in one of the best choruses I’ve heard all year and then tags it with a rockin’ guitar solo for good measure. Its story is a universal cautionary tale of selfishness and love gone wrong, the exact type of thing that goes down easier when it’s delivered in a Trojan Horse of 90s-influenced slacker rock. 
- Taylor Grimes

4 | Ethel Cain – For Sure

If you were to look at me, round glasses, black jeans, and corduroy button-up, you’d probably guess (correctly) that American Football’s self-titled record really did a number on me in high school. It’s clear the same can be said for Hayden Anhedönia, better known as Ethel Cain, who transforms “For Sure” into a transcendental 10-minute slowcore sprawl that allows even more beauty to seep through the cracks. While that sounds like a far walk for a simple Midwest Emo song, it recontextualizes the work of both artists, exalting a tale of uncertain love into a territory that’s more holy than it has any right to be.
- Taylor Grimes

3 | One Step Closer - Leap Years

One does not simply drop a song on February 29th just to let it drift away in the winds of time, especially when “Leap Years” is about just that. One Step Closer brings a whirlwind of throttling instrumentation fit for a mosh pit and passionate lyrics with a special co-writing credit from the legendary Mat Kerekes, complete with a fantastic tempo shift during the outro to take the song home. There’s really nobody crushing the melodic hardcore game like One Step Closer.
- Samuel Leon

2 | Braino – Unkind

Who doesn’t love an underdog story? “Unkind” is one of six total songs this LA group has ever made in their short, sporadic life, and it’s one of the best things I’ve heard in 2024. It is a beautifully gentle composition of uncomplicated piano and guitar, coupled with soft percussion and layered vocals—A.K.A., indie as all hell. The song is a constant internal monologue, with unhelpful thoughts taking up space and the feeling of losing ground after a positive change. I think we want to believe that we can wake up one day and be different, but the reality is it takes months or years to train ourselves to be more like our ideal selves. This song is a gorgeous lullaby to rock yourself to sleep to, placed somewhere on your journey after a backslide into nasty habits and just before a brave step forward.
- Braden Allmond

1 | Waxahatchee – Right Back To It

“Right Back To It” is timeless. Featuring a spellbinding banjo, classically confessional Crutchfield lyrics, and complete with an MJ Lenderman feature that frames the song as a loving (possibly treacherous) duet, it already feels like this melody has been in my life for decades. The music video is just as serene as we watch the two alt-country superstars float down the river in a pontoon boat, serenading the world as it passes by. This is the type of song that makes me happy to be alive, the type of chorus I’ll be singing for as long as I’m kicking around, the kind of art other musicians spend their entire lives working towards. “Right Back To It” is four and a half minutes that will live for eternity. 
- Taylor Grimes

I Hate Music Part 2: Four Days with Carpool

Click here to read Part 1. Read on to learn what it’s like touring with Carpool.

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When Josh and I first met Carpool at Richmond Music Hall, there were lots of jitters on both their side and ours. The two of us were worried (or at least conscious) of how well we’d assimilate into the group, making sure to stay out of their way and not cramp their style, allowing the members to be as natural as they could while knowing a camera might be pointed toward them at any time. On the band’s side, this was the first show they had played together in almost six months and the beginning of the biggest tour they had ever been a part of. Opening up for emo legends like Free Throw is a blessing and a pressure, but Carpool were ready to deliver. 

That night, I saw the band take the stage and witnessed the same spectacle that poured out of them at Fauxchella just a few months prior. They ripped through a 25-minute set of old and new material alike, stacking fresh singles like “Can We Just Get High?” and “No News Is Good News” up against old favorites like “Whiskey & Xanax” and “The Salty Song.”

Gradually, I watched the band win the crowd over more and more with each song, which was a trend I noticed at all three shows. The beauty of a song like “Can We Just Get High?” is that it’s dumb and straightforward, but because it’s dumb and straightforward, that also means it’s catchy as hell. Pretty much anyone can hear that chorus once, get it, and join in before the second one is even over. 

With the first song, I’d notice lots of head bobbing, swinging hips, and nodding along. By the second song, a few people might be finger-pointing or filming short clips on their phones. By the end of the set, at least a few people would be headbanging, thrashing around, shakin’ ass, and screaming along. It was beautiful to watch this transformation happen each night with completely different crowds of people; it felt like I got to watch the genuine power of rock music happen again and again. 

Left to right, Carpool is Stoph Colasanto (Lead Vocals, guitar), Torri Ross (Vocals, Bass), Alec Westover (Drums), and Tommy Eckerson (Vocals, Guitar). Photo by Abby Clare.

Even though there’s an entire documentary showcasing Carpool’s live presence, it’s worth breaking down a little bit here. Just like in the band’s music, Stoph Colasanto is happy to fill the role of charismatic ringleader. He has a yowling, scratchy voice that defaults to a scream but can also stretch and hit a beautiful high note whenever he needs to serenade. To give you an idea of fits and vibe, I saw him rock a David Cone Jersey, black leather cowboy hat, and vintage Hamm’s work shirt across our three shows. 

On the opposite end of the stage, you have Tommy Eckerson, a classic rock guitar god with natural-born solo wizardry and a clear admiration for the greats. He can belt it out when he’s on lead vocals like on “Crocodile Tears,” but more often than not, he is happy to just hit the occasional backup vocal so he can focus on his impressive guitar tapping skills. Tommy dresses in classic single-color outfits like James Dean; he might have a chain or sunglasses on, but not in a flashy way. 

Between them, you have Torri Ross, an Arizona-born bassist who bounces across the stage like a pinball, busting out a high kick and nailing every note along the way with an infectious grin. At one point, Tori said someone compared them to a character from Guitar Hero, so that’s the level of icon we’re working with here. Tori is also a knockout vocalist; their presence makes the band sound even more full, and their delivery during the bridge of “No News Is Good News” would regularly get stuck in my head for hours after each show. 

Behind them all is drummer Alec Westover, a fellow Pacific Nortwesterner who apologized in advance if he was ever a bit of a “space case.” The two of us pretty much immediately spoke the same language, as I also share a rainy-day pensiveness, which means I’m often content to sit back and observe as opposed to being the center of attention. He was usually fitted in another DIY band’s merch or a hoodie with a sports team on it. It was amazing to watch him shift into performance mode each night, busting out 30 minutes of pretty relentless drumming, knocking out every mathy twist and turn of a song like “Whiskey & Xanax” with absolute precision. It was bonkers to watch him hammer out something like that and then find him minutes later backstage chilling like it was no big deal. 

Together, I watched these four rip through the same 25-minute set three times over, and each night, it was nothing short of captivating. The setlist consisted of the same eight songs: they’d kick things off with the two-note nod-along “Can We Just Get High” and then hit us with a Carpool Classic in the form of “Whiskey & Xanax.” From there, the band would wind through songs off each album, with a couple pulled from their recent EP for good measure. If the crowd played along, they’d be treated to a cover of “Teenage Dirtbag,” a nice little throwback that allows for a unique form of participation as half the members of the crowd remember the lyrics in unison, eventually building up to that cathartic cry of “OH YEAH!!! DIRTBAG!!!” 

It’s a wonderful note to end on a non-canonical song because it feels like a fun way to let people know what you revere as a band without taking everything so seriously. In the past, Carpool has put “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit into a similar spot at other shows, but I could see any Sum 41 or Third Eye Blind slotting in there if the band ever needed any more rowdy 90s alt-rock crowd-pleasers to cap off the set with. On a similar note that I want to include here for completeness sake, I still maintain that Carpool’s cover of “Soak Up The Sun” should have been a bigger deal than it was; that thing is a work of art with an amazing video to match. Regardless, Carpool nailed their Wheatus cover and walked off the stage to raucous applause and maybe even a few new converts. Based on the amount of vinyl I saw the band singing that night, it’s safe to assume people were excited to go home and listen to the new record. 

Behind the scenes, the band was already abuzz with an infectious, if not slightly shitposty energy. Throughout most of our time together, Stoph radiated a charming and hilarious front-person energy, indulging in plenty of dirtbag antics but still keeping everything fun and good-natured, much like Carpool’s music. 

The band members already had an ongoing bit, singing the chorus of Lonestar’s 1999 hit “Amazed” back and forth to each other whenever there was a brief lull in conversation. They’d affectionately refer to each other as “cousin,” a term that felt recently re-popularized thanks to The Bear but, in Carpool’s case, felt steeped in the fact that most of the band members still work in the service industry. At one point after their first set, Stoph turned to me and, over his shoulder, offered, “Cousin is gender-neutral,” a surprisingly open-minded logic for something that just felt like an affectionate auditory tick. There’s also “cro,” a portmanteau of “cousin” and “bro” that served a similar purpose. 

Later on in the run of shows, the phrase “Stand on Business!” would take on a life of its own, eventually becoming a universally positive affirmation you could use to respond to just about anything. Just ripped a set? Stand on business. The green room has the exact flavor of Gatorade you like? Stand on business! Hearing someone bark that out and mentally nodding along in affirmation became a shared language. 

Once the concert wrapped up, Carpool spent a good chunk of time slinging shirts, signing vinyl, and snapping pics with fans. We were only an hour or so from the album’s midnight release, so we hung around the bar long enough to celebrate with the band when My Life In Subtitles officially dropped. The vibes were immaculate; Carpool’s first set of tour went off without a hitch, and the record they had spent years working towards was finally out for the world to hear. We celebrated an adequate amount, but eventually, we all packed up and headed north toward New Jersey, where we had an off-day before show #2.

-2-

After a full day of driving, our “off-day” in Asbury Park was more like an off-night. We arrived at the Airbnb around 6 pm after navigating through the utter hell that is the DC highway system. I’ve driven across the country multiple times, so I’m no stranger to long road trips, but that specific drive reinforced how much of tour is just spent packed in a car getting from one city to the next. It’s a lot of gas stations, rest stops, and fast food. You take vegetables where you can get them and get good at constructing a queue of music and podcasts long enough to stretch across multiple hours. By the time we rolled into Jersey, Carpool already had pizza on the way and YouTube up on the flatscreen TV in the shared living room space. The group flipped from the Gel Audiotree to goofy music videos and, at one point, wound up sparking (mostly ironic) a group sing-along to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”

I already had some idea of who Carpool were as people before this, so I wasn’t too worried about anything dramatic or salacious happening during my time with the band. Even still, I was wondering if things would ever get tense or “real” once we were all out on the road together. The closest we ever got to some Behind The Music-style drama was when the band’s manager, Danny Doyle, learned that Tommy ordered from a jerk chicken place without him. This restaurant was apparently a bit of a tradition any time the band visited Asbury, but Doyle was only (jokingly) a little put out that Tommy ordered without him. That exchange, the cold and calculating betrayal at the hands of Tommy, was about the closest the group ever came to rising tensions.

A tender moment between Stoph and Alec

After long enough, Carpool, plus myself and Josh in-tow, moseyed a few blocks down to Georgies, a gay bar, in search of karaoke. While we didn’t find an open mic, I quickly discovered that Torri and Dan were absolute pool sharks as I watched them each go on six-ball hot streaks, sinking multiple billiards into the bar’s only pool table. 

We wound up hopping to another bar that actually contained multiple other bars, a needlessly complicated way to cram several distinct vibes on top of each other. My night almost evoked that one Lady Gaga clip, except it was bar, bar, another bar. At one of these bars-within-a-bar, I wound up chatting with Jake Trieste and Frankie Mancini, two of Stoph’s high school friends who were in town from Rochester just to watch the band perform the following night. They were more than happy to tell tales of putting up with a younger version of Stoph and how it felt like he had eternal senioritis, even back then. “Teachers thought he wouldn’t do shit, but look at him now, he’s following his dreams,” Jake laid out at one point. While I was already privy to Eyes Wide Shut, an (admittedly bad) post-hardcore project featuring members of Carpool and calicuzns, Jake was the first to inform me of Stoph’s high school rap project, something I’m still hoping I’ll be able to get my hands on at some point, if the files still exist at all. 

That night, I ended up having some pretty in-depth discussions with most of the band members. At one point, Tommy and I were embroiled in a conversation about our shared reverence for classic rock, specifically Van Morrison. He informed me how this admiration for that older style of rock music influenced his approach to songwriting for the new LP, and I could totally hear it. The proggy guitarwork at the end of “CAR” and the fiery solo at the end of “Can We Just Get High?” made total sense when placed in a lineage of boomer rock I inherited from my dad. 

Similarly, Alec and I were both from Oregon, a fact I didn’t know until I saw him sporting a forest green University of Oregon hoodie. Bonded by that shared upbringing and mutual appreciation (or tolerance for) rain, the two of us got deep talking about the creation of Subtitles and how it compared to the band’s previous work. He explained his role as drummer and how the instrumental parts for some of the songs on this record took shape long before the lyrics were in place. 

The group communally discussed their shared appreciation for Bug Jar, a 200-cap music venue in Rochester that the band has played so many times they might as well have their name engraved on the rafters. In fact, this July, Carpool will be playing two triumphant nights at Bug Jar, celebrating the release of My Life In Subtitles. The first night will be a set of Carpool classics, covers, and songs the group never plays anymore, while night two will be a full album playthrough of Subtitles for the ravenous hometown crowd. With support from legends like Equipment, Carly Cosgrove, Del Paxton, and Cheap Kids, these shows are gonna be a Carpool summit for the ages.

Carpool Album Release Shows

In a telling moment, at one point, I overheard the band talking to a table of patrons as they were hunting for a lighter. Upon learning that Stoph and Tommy were in a band, they asked what kind of music Carpool made. “Good luck playing Wonder Bar if you’re not a ska band,” one of them warned, “This is a ska-only town,” he said with the most serious grimace one can manage while still talking about ska. 

Knowing how averse everyone is to the “emo” label, my ears perked up to hear what the answer would be. The two band members shared a knowing look before Tommy said, “You wanna know what the actual answer is? Real scumbag rock.” The labels of “punk” and “emo” encapsulate so much yet feel so limiting, especially for a band that just put out a record as diverse and varied as My Life In Subtitles. 

That same night, your boy made a rookie mistake of Taking Too Much. While I’d been cautious to monitor how much I’d imbibed on night one, on night two, I wasn’t drinking at all. Instead, I decided to help stimulate New Jersey’s blossoming dispensary economy. I started the night off with a little baby joint to myself as we were on the way to Bar #1 and felt fine. Actually, if anything, I felt leveled out after a day's worth of travel in the car. My mistake came at Bar #2, where I went back for seconds, cheefing on a $10 pre-roll of Jersey weed that sent me into an actual panic attack by the time we’d reached Bar #3. 

The band had decided to leave the second bar in search of a casino, something that we quickly learned does not exist anywhere in Asbury Park. Instead, the band was stopped by Joey DiCamillo of NJ emo band Straight Jacket Feeling. “There’s no casino in Asbury Park,” he laughed towards our group, “Come on in here and grab an espresso martini.” At this point, I was so deep in my head that I was sure it would be my last night alive. I pulled Stoph outside, muttered an exchange that was probably as confusing as it was incoherent, and walked back to the Airbnb, fully freaked the fuck out. Not exactly my finest moment. 

While that was an all-time embarrassing moment in my life that happened in front of a band I’d long admired, I wanted to include it here for accuracy’s sake and also to illustrate how sweet and kind-hearted the members of Carpool are. By the end of the night, Tommy, Alec, Josh, and I were huddled around a patio set in the backyard of our Airbnb talking (unironically) about the brilliance of the Goo Goo Dolls, and I could feel my anxiety dissipating by the minute. I apologized to Stoph the next day, and he assured me it was okay; Carpool, if nothing else, are a band that understands the experience of getting too high and freaking out; that’s the content of about half their songs. 

-3-

The next day, the group filed into Wonder Bar for a stormy Asbury Park soundcheck, then proceeded to play one of the best gigs I’ve seen all year. The room was electric, with plenty of the band’s childhood friends and old roommates embedded at various spots in the sold-out crowd, plus a glut of New Jerseyans ready to cut loose on a Saturday night. The band played through the same setlist, but this time, Corey from Free Throw joined the band on stage for their Wheatus cover and set the room ablaze. People crowdsurfed, shouted along, and shared the mic, all for the god-damn opener. 

Photo by Abby Clare

After the show packed up, the remainder of Carpool and their friends migrated down the boardwalk to a discotheque blasting 70s soul classics, and the group danced the night away in a moment that felt more than celebratory. For me, it felt like everyone had forgotten about my embarrassing faux paus the night before, getting too high and getting weird, but for the band, it felt like genuine revelry. They had just played an incredible set, signed a bunch of vinyl, and were out dancing with some of their oldest friends. As we were collectively shakin’ our booties to Diana Ross, it really felt like the credits could roll at any moment. 

But there was one more show to play. 

After some post-dancing Taco Bell and unwinding with a one-two punch of the Wednesday Tiny Desk and the Elephant Gym Audiotree, the gang called it a night because we all had to be in Pittsburg the next day for the final show of this leg of the tour. 

-4-

In the Steel City, the gig, once again, unfolded in a similar way, with the band winning over portions of the crowd minute by minute. Between songs, Stoph kept talking about how each track was actually inspired by Mean Girls 2 and were all somehow directly tied to the Tina Fey Cinematic Universe. It was also revealed that “Whiskey & Xanax” is actually about the Lizzie McGuire Lego set that got stolen from Stoph when he was in 5th grade (Genius annotators, you can quote me).

Before we all went our separate ways, Stoph, Josh, and I snuck off for a mediocre dinner at a local Schwarma place. We wound up having a surprisingly involved conversation about movies, but it eventually circled back to music. At one point, Stoph talked about how grateful he is to be around such talented musicians, referring to the rest of his band. He spoke about the difference between being an elite musician who can play something flawlessly versus being a band with personality. Ultimately, the three of us agreed that a balance between those two things is the sweet spot, and we unanimously decided that, after watching three consecutive shows, Carpool sat squarely at that intersection. 

Photo by Abby Clare

At the end of this, it was bittersweet and mostly sad to watch the band’s Honda Odyssey pull off into the sunset on the way back up to Rochester for a week off before going back on tour, but I felt like I had been a small part of something incredibly special. 

Josh and I made a brief pit stop to catch Origami Angel close out the Don’t Let The Scene Go Down On Me’s 17th-anniversary showcase, rounding out an already-emo weekend with a heaping helping of dorky pop rock (positive). 

The two of us checked into our Airbnb, and weirdly, all I wanted to do was listen to Carpool. I listened to all of Nasal Use and My Life In Subtitles before going to bed and found myself loving the album more than I ever had. After seeing the band live, I could pick out Torri’s vocals floating through the upper end of the mix. I could spot Tommy’s guitar wizardry after watching him cast the same spells night after night. I could hear Alec’s study drumming holding everything together, the silent assassin murdering every fill and propulsive hit. I could hear Stoph’s voice, literally and figuratively, across each song and every word as I read along with the lyrics and did the public service of uploading all the words to Genius. Maybe all I needed was six months of listening to this album before it clicked. Maybe all I needed was to watch this band play a couple of these songs live to “get it,” or maybe I had just absorbed so much of Carpool’s energy that I started to feel admiration by proxy. 

-reflections-

I think you do something like this (I.e., join a band on the road) out of love but also because it teaches you something about yourself. If it’s not already abundantly clear, I love Carpool: the band, the music, the people, and it was an honor to essentially feel like part of the group, even for a few days. I set out to capture this band as best I could and try to tell their story at what felt like an important inflection point in their career; to try to capture and convey what I love about them to an audience that’s completely external to all of this. 

I genuinely believe this band possesses something special, and that’s evident in the footage we captured for this documentary, the music they painstakingly put to record, and the way that these people navigate the world and interact with each other. You can see it in the fandom they’re building, the merch and videos they’re making, and the connections they’ve fostered. Everything is considered, and nothing is half-assed. Nobody is doing it quite like Carpool.

This entire trip, the final lines of Erotic Nightmare Summer kept floating through my head: “Carpool is a band about sharing smiles with friends.” As I watched the members bounce across the stage each night, nailing every solo and sticking every high kick, it was impossible not to absorb some of that jubilation.

So sure, I did this because I adore Carpool and wanted to show what it’s like to be a young rock band ramping up to release the most important record of their lives. And, despite my initial reservations, I do think My Life In Subtitles is a great album, it’s a giant, challenging, wide-set record where no two songs sound the same. The scope is ambitious, the songs are unlike anything the band has done before, and that’s a good thing. My experience with this album, listening to it on and off for months, has unearthed a level of depth I never expected during that first listen on the Metro North. At a certain point, creating a “grower” is a true test of a band, and that’s what Carpool have done with their sophomore album.

In talking to all these people- fans, friends, the touring bands, and even the members of Carpool themselves- pretty much everyone had a different favorite song from My Life in Subtitles. I think that goes to show how varied and diverse this record is. 

Photo by Abby Clare

Sometimes, you reach a point in life where you just have to throw yourself into something full-force and see what happens. This whole experience of joining a band on the road, interviewing people, taking notes, filming things, sitting in on soundchecks, and spending an extended period of time immersed in a pre-existing configuration of people was all new to me. Sometimes you overshoot (or fly too close to the sun), but even when you do, you learn something about yourself. 

In fact, I think that’s largely the story of My Life In Subtitles as an album: the three-act structure of Dirtbag, Meltdown, and Reclamation feels like a universal truth in some ways. You’ve got this unrepentant scumbaginess in songs like “Can We Just Get High?” and “Open Container Blues,” whose upsides are self-evident. Then you’ve got the middle of the album, which covers everything else: romance (Crocodile Tears), recklessness (Kid Icarus), shitty jobs (No News), questioning who you are (Taxes), questioning organizations (CAR), and the crushing weight of capitalism (throughout). Yet all of this is speckled with glimmers of hope. Despite its title, a song like “I Hate Music” is still a nuanced mediation of the love Carpool has for tour life. They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t love it. 

Much like “Don’t Start a Band” by Short Fictions, a song can be a biting commentary and a love letter because sometimes you can’t have one without the other. You can’t criticize something without loving it, and vice versa. In Carpool’s case, I think it’s clear that this band loves the music they’re making. Just look at their on-stage presence or who they are as people. When you’re performing songs as catchy, inventive, and high-energy as these every night, who can blame you for having a great time while doing it?

But this overarching structure of living like a degenerate, fucking up, licking your wounds, and then trying again with better intentions feels like an appropriately large thing to articulate. This feels like a process we all must go through ourselves at some point. 

Even disregarding some larger narrative, My Life In Subtitles is a collection of feelings and experiences laid bare for the listener. It feels like a scrambled collection of ups and downs, highs, lows, and just plain frustrations of life. In Stoph’s case, he argues that if his life were a movie, it would be a pretty shitty one… But I think that’s how everyone feels, isn’t it? “Who would want to watch THIS?” Fuckin’ terrible show. 

If that is indeed the top-level takeaway from this record, I think it’s funny that my reaction to it was to double down in the opposite direction. To hear an album’s worth of songs about how unglamorous and shitty and fucked up life has been for the members of Carpool, then to want to join them on the road to capture more of that life. If it’s such a terrible show, why am I so drawn to it? Why do I want more? Why do I keep coming back to this record and this band? I think the answer is right there in the subtitles.

Poster by Hallie Kanter

I Hate Music Part 1: An Abridged History of Loving Carpool

When Chris “Stoph” Colasanto sent me the new Carpool album back in November, I had never been more excited to open a Dropbox link in my life. I’ve been a music geek forever, and even though this blog is nine years old, it never fails to blow my mind when a band I love sends me their music. 

On a surface level, it’s cool to hear an album early before the rest of the world, but on a much deeper level, it means a lot when an artist trusts you with their creations. That also extends to labels and PR people, but when it comes directly from a band member like this, it truly means the world. 

In the case of Carpool, the punk rock four-piece from Rochester, New York, the group had become a quick favorite of mine over the course of 2020. In a year that was crushing, demoralizing, terrifying, and destabilizing in its own uniquely hellish way, Carpool’s music offered me a brilliant ray of optimism that cut through the darkness. 

The whole thing started with a premiere for “Come Thru Cool (Punk Ass)” that I wrote in early May. We were two months into being sequestered in our homes, and everyone was starting to get a bit of cabin fever. I took the single because it sounded like a fun thing to work on, plus the track was a fucking rager. The screamed vocals evoked equal parts Prince Daddy and Every Time I Die, which was a combo I could fully get behind. I also loved how the song churned into this heavy metal tantrum but still managed to have super catchy verses. 

I didn’t think much about Carpool for the next month until the release of Erotic Nightmare Summer on June 5th. I gave the album a listen. Then another. And another. Gradually, I found myself drawn to the record on a pure, unthinking, gravitational level, and the whole thing became muscle memory. Didn’t know what I wanted to listen to? Throw on Carpool. Driving around the winding mountain roads of Denver? Throw on Carpool. Running errands between my apartment, the dispensary, and the grocery store? Throw on Carpool. It became omnipresent and comforting in the best way possible.

Erotic Nightmare Summer ended up soundtracking my year in a way I never could have predicted. The album’s 30-minute run time made the whole thing a breeze that I could slot into my day at any point. The record had an infectious vibe with flashy guitarwork, tight instrumentation, and heaps of hooks that I eventually got pretty good at singing from the comfort of my car. 

Much like the band’s first collection of songs, Erotic Nightmare Summer is still an album steeped in emo stylings, including lots of guitar tapping, group chants, silly samples, and a lyrical run-down of fucked-up behavior. It’s easy to discount “emo” as a descriptor for an almost infinite number of reasons. The genre has had many lives, revivals, periods, and shades, so it means a million things to a million different people, especially when talking to fans from different generations. No matter who you talk to, there’s bound to be a diminutive undercurrent when the word rolls off the tongue. Describing Carpool as an “emo band” sells them short because, even on this first record, they’re more than that. Lyrically, Erotic Nightmare Summer isn’t afraid to delve into heavy topics like addiction, mental health, and failing relationships, but the band navigates these topics in a catchy way that makes them go down easy. It’s actually a very multi-faceted album, even though your average person would probably listen to it and call it punk or, worse, “screamo.” 

Regardless of how you personally view these ever-blurring genre lines, one thing gradually became clear to me by the time December rolled around: this was my favorite album of the year. I had spent too much time with Erotic Nightmare Sumer for my answer to be anything else. 

2020 was a shit year for a lot of things, but I was grateful to have music there guiding me through the good and the bad and the incomprehensible alike. There may have been prettier albums out that year, like Saint Cloud, and even albums that felt more important, like Fetch the Bolt Cutters, but ultimately, I found myself pulled towards Erotic Nightmare Summer for its simplicity. Turns out that when the world is falling apart, the main thing I want is a hook I can sing along with and some riffs I can thrash around to. 

Fast forward a couple of years, and I’m in a completely different place than I was in 2020, thank god. I was still living in Denver but found myself in an exciting new relationship with someone from New York. The long-distance thing was new to both of us, so it was hard, but it felt like we were in it together. We were honest with each other every step of the way and generally found that the beauty and love we felt in this partnership outweighed the pain of being separated by almost two thousand miles at any given time.

A long-distance relationship like this also meant lots of flying; she’d come out to hang with me in Denver, and I’d return the favor, visiting her out in New York. We went back and forth like that for months, with whirlwind week-long visits punctuated by month-long stretches where we’d talk on the phone almost every night. It was hard, but this relationship felt special enough that it was all worth it. 

Sometime in July of 2022, I got a text from Stoph with a link to a new EP from Carpool titled For Nasal Use Only. I excitedly loaded the files onto my phone and spent the back half of the summer familiarizing myself with the five-pack of new offerings from the band. Specifically, I would throw this EP on during many of these long flights to visit my girlfriend out on the East Coast. Songs like “Tommy’s Car” felt like they perfectly articulated the type of love, commitment, and desire for self-betterment that I was feeling at that time. Obviously, the EP’s one overt love song, “Discretion of Possession,” hit that spot too, but as a whole, this collection of songs felt like a shockingly accurate depiction of where I found myself in this new relationship, including all the worries and possible fuck-ups that come with it. 

It’s also worth noting that I had access to these files with zero other information: no album art, no tracklist, and even a misspelling of “Discresion,” which is now a stain on my last.fm account forever. I listened to the songs in the sequence I imagined the band would place them in, but I would also sometimes just let them run in alphabetical order. It led to an interesting relationship with the EP where this pit-stop in the band’s discography morphed into an interactive piece that shifted from one listen to the next. The songs became abstracted in a cool way, but no matter what order I played them in, they all still hung together as a fun-loving 15-minute excursion that built out the exact type of hookiness I loved on Erotic Nightmare Summer.

I still vividly remember playing “Everyone’s Happy” when my girlfriend and I were dogsitting for a friend in New York. It was months before the song would become publicly available, and it felt so special to be walking around the streets of Brooklyn chanting the song’s coda quietly to myself while walking to get a bagel. I know Rochester and New York City are very different things, but I still felt the power of the Empire State flowing through me.  

By the end of the summer, Carpool had officially reemerged with “Anime Flashbacks” as a lead single, and I was beyond excited to see the public’s reaction. I liked the song a lot, but its heavy addition of synth felt like a wary step away from the all-out rock we heard from the band on their debut LP. Again, receiving music early results in this interesting phenomenon, which almost places you alongside the band, wondering how these songs will be received. 

2023 was largely a year of planning for Carpool as the band prepared to drop their sophomore album, My Life In Subtitles. They brought on bassist/vocalist Torri Ross, who brought an excitable, rambunctious energy to the band’s live performances, along with some killer backing vocals, rounding out the group in the best way. With this new lineup solidified, the band took to the road, performing up and down the country, cutting their teeth on the classics and testing out new material alike. They played an hour-long battle set at Fauxchella VI in Ohio, and after seeing this incarnation of Carpool’s lineup, all I knew was that I wanted more. The band’s battle set saw them facing off against Summerbruise, another perennial favorite of this blog, which resulted in an elated 60-minute stretch of my life that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. 

Even without a new record, 2023 continued to be a pretty eventful year for Carpool. They went Ridiculousness-level viral when this video of Stoph puking while playing a gig spread like wildfire on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. The band even found a bootleg screen-recorded version that had its own millions of views exclusively from within a Spanish Facebook page. The group ripped a flu-game-style set at Fest 21 in Florida while members of the band were under the weather, and I know it just constantly sounds like Carpool is constantly sick, contagious, or puking, but they had a lot of normal gigs too, like this one at a skatepark in Milwaukee, that looked like the set of a damn movie. Perhaps most importantly, by November, the band signaled their next level-up when they signed to SideOneDummy and dropped the first single of their new LP. Everything was in motion. 

When Stoph sent me a text with the new Carpool album back in November, I had never been more excited to receive a Dropbox link in my entire life. I clicked on the link, and my eyes skittered across all 12 song titles, mind racing with what each could contain. I pressed “download” and started to do my favorite thing: edit metadata. I converted the WAV files to MP3, dragged them into my iTunes library, and synched my phone as if this access could be revoked at any moment. I didn’t even have the album art, but I had the new album from fucking Carpool months before most of the world, and with great power comes great appreciation.

I didn’t want to just half-attentively throw this album on in the background while I worked; I wanted my first listen to be intentional and meaningful. I tend to have this problem with artists I love where I’ll wind up waiting weeks, months, or even years to listen to their newest material because I loved their last project so much. For example, I’m a big Wonder Years Guy, and that love definitely extends to Aaron West, solo material, and pretty much anything Dan Campbell touches. I loved the first Aaron West album so much that when the group released their follow-up in 2019, it took me a whole month to work myself up to listening to it just because I wanted to experience it under the “right circumstances.” 

Carpool had released my album of the year just a few years prior, so this new LP wasn’t something I was going to treat lightly. I wanted to make sure that whenever I sat down and hit play, I’d have enough time to make it to the end. I wanted to put my phone away and listen undistracted, fully absorbed in the music, to take it all in at once. 

Photo by Bridget Hagen

My Life In Subtitles sat on my phone for a week or two until I found myself up in New York for Thanksgiving with my girlfriend’s family. The day before Thanksgiving, she and I woke up early and raced to Grand Central Station to take the Metro North up to Connecticut where the rest of her family was spending the holiday. It was my first time visiting the iconic train station or taking a train out of the city, and my little West Coast brain was just taking in the swirl of activity: college kids traveling to visit their families in other states, people with laptops and real adult clothes getting work done on their commute, various couples watching as the world raced by outside the window. 

Like many of my New York Firsts, this train ride quickly became a core memory. After we had made it out of the city and into the (slightly) more pastoral scenery of northern New York, the cabin began to settle in and quiet down. With over an hour left in the trip, I decided that this would be the perfect time to venture into Carpool’s new record. 

I pulled out my phone, popped in my AirPods, and hit play on My Life In Subtitles. Then the craziest thing happened. I only kind of liked it. 

By this point, I had already heard, written about, and loved the lead single “Can We Just Get High?” but the rest of the album didn’t quite connect immediately. I remember firing off an excited message to Stoph when Cliffdiver’s Briana Wright popped up on “Open Container Blues,” a text that simply read “Cliffdiver!?!?” which I meant to intone like the Tiffany Pollard Beyoncé meme. I remember my brain doing backflips when I heard the “OOH OOH OOH” at the end of “I Hate Music,” but other than that, the album played out, and nothing grabbed me quite like any of the songs off Erotic Nightmare Summer. Weird.

At first, I dismissed this as a one-off experience. Deciding to tie my first listen to such a novel trip might have been too ambitious. Sure, this first impression on the Metro North was memorable, but maybe not the best way to experience an album for the first time. I gave the record a few more spins throughout December and the new year and gradually came to an interesting conclusion about the arc of the album. After listening to it enough times, I began to view My Life In Subtitles in three acts:

1. A beginning stretch starting with the introductory title track and winding across the first two singles through “Crocodile Tears.”

2. A more pensive middle stretch starting with “Done Paying Taxes” and ending with “No News Is Good News.”

3. A leave-it-all-on-the-floor final act starting with “I Hate Music” through the end of the record. 

For a while, I straight-up didn’t like this middle stretch of the album. The songs were sadder and slower and felt far away from the peppy pop-punk shreddin’ of the band’s prior work. At one point, I even took the time to make a reqesuenced playlist, combining my favorite songs off Subtitles and Nasal Use into one album-length experience that flowed in its own way. It wasn’t that I outright hated any of these songs; I was just toying around with them as individual pieces in a way you do whenever you’re a deep enough fan of anything. 

I’d throw on the new Carpool album once every week or so throughout the new year, continuing to digest it, and each time, I’d find little moments that would jump out to me: lyrics or instrumental bits that would land differently than the last time I heard them. I still viewed the album in these three acts and still generally liked the first and third better than the middle, but that ebb and flow gradually just started to feel like part of the journey.

I suppose I can cut straight to the chase and say I actually like the album a lot more now, especially after seeing some of these songs live. A comparison that at one point felt astute to me was lining up these two Carpool albums with Nirvana’s last two albums. Much like Nirvana stacked hook after hook on Nevermind, Carpool backed a bunch of rockin’, cheery(-sounding), sing-along hooks against each other. Then, much like Nirvana got darker, angrier, and a little more writerly on In Utero, Carpool have created something that’s more challenging, engaging, and interesting than a record full of hooks. 

On My Life In Subtitles, the band takes you on this winding overview of their life, which is also your life for the entire duration of the record. They absorb you into this world, make you invested in their journey, and then deposit you off safe and sound with a beautiful little piano loop. This experience is broken down in loving detail through this blog’s own review, one I actually didn’t write but am in total alignment with from an editorial standpoint. I really do think the album is brilliant in a lot of ways, from the songwriting and the instrumentals to the design and packaging to the multitude of music videos they were able to create in the lead-up to its release. Everything culminates in one big, swirling 40-minute monument that acts as much as a document of a life as it is a document about life. 

That brings me to the real core of this piece because, in March, I joined Carpool on the road for four days, catching the band’s first three shows of the year and their album release on Friday, March 22nd. Of course, this was a dream come true. To be able to take time off work and follow a band on the road is something I would never have imagined in the early days of this blog, and I was only able to achieve this through covering a band, engaging with their work, and developing a relationship with them that felt like it was built on mutual admiration.

I didn’t let on about my initial reservations about the album; I still enjoyed it and didn’t want the band members to think I was there for anything else. I believe in Carpool and felt grateful they would open their band up to me in any way, so I asked them, and they said yes the same day. Fucking awesome. 

I enlisted the help of Joshua Sullivan, a local friend, filmmaker, and musician in his own right who knew how to work a camera. At the time, Josh was actually in the process of finishing up his own feature-length film, all shot, edited, and released DIY, which was a scale and ambition I admired. The two of us had already spent a few long nights nerding out about music, so I knew he’d gel with Carpool, too. On March 21st, we drove up to meet the band in Richmond, Virginia, for night one of the tour. We were officially on the road with Carpool.

Click here to watch the full tour documentary and read part 2 of this essay.

Carpool – My Life in Subtitles | Album Review

SideOneDummy

After working in several movie theaters throughout college, I've spent my fair share of time in projection booths. My favorite was filled floor to ceiling with old movie posters, each haphazardly taped on top of the other, with the oldest posters just barely peeking out behind the latest. The shelves were filled with odd memorabilia (Jurassic Park dinosaurs, B-list celebrity standees, promotional shirts for forgotten A24 films), and the lights were permanently low. 

Carpool’s latest album, My Life in Subtitles, takes me back to that projection booth. The Rochester band’s sophomore album captures the feeling you get watching a movie through a small glass window—the sensation of watching something bigger than you, something that excludes you, but something you still can peer in on. Projection booths are niche liminal spaces, rooms caught between an audience and invisibility. Like the complexities of the projection booth, this album operates from above, crafting story and sound from a secluded vantage point, and that all starts on the first track. 

Following a melancholy piano introduction, Carpool throws the listener directly into their lead single, “Can We Just Get High?,” a song the band dubbed the spiritual successor to their 2020 entry to the emo canon, “The Salty Song.” On the surface, “Can We Just Get High?” is a full-force rocker that feels like the rush of a sweaty beer pong win. The song has an anthemic quality that makes it feel like the performance a hot new pop-punk band would blast through at a house party during their minute-long cameo in a 2000s dramedy. The track practically demands to be chanted along with, featuring a binary chorus of, “Love me / hate me / can we just get high?” The band intersperses that kinetic energy with musical tricks that push the entire song into overdrive — extended guitar notes, signature Carpool screams, and a solo from lead guitarist Tommy Eckerson that flows like a knocked-over Miller High Life. 

In the music video, the band leans into the chaos through a disorienting backyard rager and a well-placed Animal House reference executed by bassist Torri Ross. Directors Kevin Flanagan and Christian Payment capture the surreal panic of the song through a musical fantasia of beers in the tub, high-stakes poker, and falling into a pool with your suit and tie on. The band followed this video up with one for “Open Container Blues,” a slightly more mournful track with a stunning feature from Briana Wright of Cliffdiver. While the song balances on frustration and tragedy, the video intersperses lyrics with glowing footage of the band’s joint tour in the summer of 2023. A joyous reminder that at the end of the day, Carpool will always be for sharing smiles with friends. 

The final music video released for My Life In Subtitles was for “CAR,” a post-hardcore departure from Carpool’s typical pop-tinged emo sound. With this tonal shift in music came an accompanying change in visuals. Directors Kevin Flanagan and Christian Payment moved away from the absurdity of “Can We Just Get High” and the camaraderie of “Open Container Blues” for something darker – a nightmare designed to knock listeners off-kilter and keep them on their toes. Soundtracked by his own screaming, the video depicts lyricist/vocalist/guitarist Stoph Colasanto trapped on the roof of a building and being chased through a parking garage by cloaked cult figures. For an album as thematically broad as My Life in Subtitles, the diverse array of genres and emotions depicted through the music videos do a good job representing the vast emotional complexities found throughout these songs.

Between the first stretch of songs of this album, I found myself asking, what does it mean to feel doomed? Not be doomed; just feel it. This theme is familiar territory in Carpool’s lyricism; their debut album, Erotic Nightmare Summer, was tinged with this urgency and pangs of frustration. The band’s follow-up EP, 2022’s For Nasal Use Only, offered a synthier, sunnier companion to the TV-static melancholy of ENS. It also provided a five-song glimpse into Carpool’s growing sonic capabilities, suggesting that the band was ready to fly.

Perhaps no one understands that sensation of soaring doom more than Icarus, the mythological boy who flew too close to the sun in search of freedom. Shifting away from broken-in emo and power-chord pop found in the opening stretch of the album, “Kid Icarus” sits comfortably in the middle of the record as a highly visual song with a winding, stadium-like delivery. It’s a song that takes up the whole room, with Stoph Colasanto envisioning himself as Icarus, affirming that, “If I could fly towards the sun, I would fly towards the sun.” Not to be confused with soaking up the sun, don’t get it twisted. Like many Carpool songs, the music and lyrics weave two conflicting emotions, in this case, an aerial melody paired with free-falling notions of self-doubt. That tangible longing and sense of closeness with something just out of reach echoes my projection booth memories. Do you join the crowd? Or do you keep your turmoil to yourself?

Of all the tracks on the album, “Thom York New City” was the song I found myself replaying the most: listening to it in the still of the night, listening to it while lying flat on my back and staring at the ceiling, listening to it while walking home from seeing friends. “Thom Yorke New City” is a hell of a final act. Lyrically, it illustrates the repetitive balancing act of choosing to look on the bright side even though that bright side is never guaranteed to happen, moving forward with a knowing and predicated voice. Sonically, it mirrors the flight patterns of “Kid Icarus” and calls back to the comfort of prior Carpool songs with a song-shifting drum fill from drummer Alec Westover.

 But that can’t be where this album stops, so it isn’t. Instead, My Life in Subtitles ends on punctuation, a small button in the form of “Every Time I Think of You I Smile.” This is the musical equivalent of the lights slowly coming up in a theater as the credits roll. After an album full of contemplating what it means to feel doomed in your own life despite your best efforts, this final track relies on memory to offer evidence that the doom isn’t forever and that the sky will clear eventually. This song bookends the opening titular track, forming an infinite loop of gray uncertainty turning into wavering assuredness, and then back again.

The credits end, and I am left in the projection booth, accompanied by the soft clicking of the projector. I turn it off, stretch my legs, and leave to get the broom to sweep up popcorn, reflecting on what I had just watched. I feel as if I have truly witnessed a full story play out through this album, one chronicling the ups and downs of Stoph Colasanto’s recent life and the distance between reality and subtitles—the difference between what’s said and what’s shown. 

From my view in the projection booth, I can feel the atmosphere created by this album. I immediately knew the script, the characters, and the setting, but I also didn’t know them at all because I was only watching from afar. Years of songwriting, musical experimentation, and life have gone into this record. While other Carpool projects have looked back or yearned forward, My Life in Subtitles looks from above. This is an album where the entire band soars. With its earnest lyricism, acrobatic guitar solos, and genre-shifting delivery, My Life in Subtitles is an album with altitude.

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Caro Alt’s (she/her) favorite thing in the world is probably collecting CDs. Caro is from New Orleans, Louisiana and spends her time not sorting her CD collection even though she really, really needs to.

Carpool – Can We Just Get High? / Gulfer – Clean | Double Single Review

Ah, November 15th: a Wednesday that will go down in history as the day we got new singles from venerable emo projects Carpool and Gulfer. Truly a duet of pleasures. Funny enough, even though these are unrelated singles from completely disconnected bands, the titles play off each other in a way that feels like a hilarious coincidence. As a diehard, insatiable emo freak who’s been a fan of both groups for years, today is as good as a national holiday.

First up, Carpool’s “Can We Just Get High?” is a scuzzy dirtbag anthem that asks the exact question posed in its title. The Rochester emo group wastes no time, blasting in immediately with a bouncy two-note pop-punk riff and lyrics that lay out the entire spectrum of human emotion as lead singer Stoph Colasanto shouts, “Love me / hate me / don’t care, can we just get high?” 

This single immediately feels right at home in Carpool’s discography, continuing themes found in some of the band’s best songs, touching on drug use, escapism, and codependency, but still somehow making those topics fun enough to sing along to. Just the first taste of the band’s upcoming sophomore album, “Can We Just Get High,” is the boisterous sound of a party that’s just getting started. As you would expect from any endorphin-expending night out, the comedown is soon to follow, which actually leads beautifully to…

Gulfer’s “Clean” arrives with a magnanimous video that aims to wring the last moments of sun-soaked joy out of the summer. We watch as the Québécois emo group jump into a backyard pool, instruments and all, as the lyrics weave the tale of Nicki, a disillusioned office worker caught in the endless loop of work/home/repeat. 

Moving a half-step away from the emo tappiness of their most recent singles, one-offs, and splits, “Clean” has a sunny sway that shows an unexpectedly poppy side of Gulfer. As the video moves from poolside to the band members lounging around a cozy plant-adorned house, tensions mount as a second layer of harsher vocals get layered onto the final verse, making for a scintillating reminder of why Gulfer are one of the greatest emo bands to ever do it.