Carpool Share 'Open Container Blues' Featuring CLIFFDIVER's Today

Rochester, NY's Carpool signed to the storied LA-based independent label SideOneDummy Records last year and announced their first album for the label; My Life In Subtitles, which will be released March 22nd, 2024.

The band is back today with their first new song of 2024 and sharing their second single, “Open Container Blues,” which features CLIFFDIVER's Bri Wright, today. The new track shows the band's adeptness at mixing math rock guitars with high-octane punk and catchy emo songwriting.

Carpool make writing these infectious songs seem effortless, and Bri Wright's plaintive verse is the perfect addition to an already timeless banger. The music video for the new single, which can be watched below, is a fitting collage of footage from Carpool's 2023 tour with CLIFFDIVER and Michael Cera Palin. Carpool will be back on the road in the spring of 2024, with tour dates to be announced soon.    

Speaking to “Open Container Blues”, Stoph Colasanto writes: “Open Container Blues is a song about toxic relationships, money, and substance (a real 3 for 1!). Its hook relies on the premise that somehow the grass is always greener on the other side.

“Everything I'm chasing is a dollar away” is a very common school of thought. It's similar to the old adage “another day another dollar”, in the sense that we're literally miserable toiling our lives away for that next best thing; but once you get it, you'll want even more. Or on the other side of that very same coin - you'll always be so close to your goal (want or need) and always be just a dollar short (or a second late). My favorite thing about playing music in this scene is the friendships that I've made along the way.

One of the best friendships that has come out of us playing and touring has been with our cousins in Cliffdiver. All 876 of those cats mean the world and more to us (they have a lot of members haha). I sent Bri the track and asked if she wanted to sing the second verse, and lucky for us she said yes! Her voice is so good, it literally gives me chills every time i watch her or hear her perform. Gas up cousin, happy new year! Shout out Rochester New York.”  

Cliffdiver's Briana Wright adds; “My infatuation with Carpool has been ongoing for years, so just as a fan I have been dying for new music. Being invited along for OCB was an honor and I can't wait to watch them blow up from the 50 go bills”  

“Open Container Blues” follows the anthemic PUP-meets-Weezer pop-punk ripper “Can We Just Get High?,” with its surge of quasi-nihilistic recklessness and massive riffs. The songs on Carpool's My Life In Subtitles blend careless fun with abject desperation to create an existential crisis you want to dance to.

Bookended by two sub-two-minute piano-led songs, the bulk of Carpool's sophomore album is a blistering collection of controlled chaos. Singing about existential angst, late-night self-flaggelation, tender yearning, and not paying taxes. The band has crafted an album that balances their big riffs and off-the-walls punk with deeply personal explorations of growing up, fing up, and figuring it all out along the way, or at least trying to.  

The young band has been growing a dedicated following since its inception in 2018, known for its ability to craft thrashing yet heartfelt punk songs that dabble in emo, pop punk and hardcore. The band, consisting of guitarist/vocalists Chris ‘Stoph' Colasanto and Tommy Eckerson with drummer Alec Westover and bassist Torri Ross, toured with CLIFFDIVER and Michael Cera Palin last year and played a buzzy set at THE FEST in Gainesville, FL. My Life In Subtitles was recorded with Jay Zubricky— the Buffalo-based producer who has worked with Every Time I Die, Pentimento, and Marigold, among others. 

Photo Credit:  Bridget Hagen

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