"Duct Tape Soup"

Album Review By: Tyler Vile

Tracks:
1. Trying Too Hard
2. Summertime
3. Caught Up
4. Left Outside Again
5. Safely Wasting Away
6. Wake Up
7. Pick Up the Pieces
8. RDC
9. Construction
10. Closed Doors, Closed Minds
11. Pretty Mess
12. WNWSFK
13. Can You Feel That?
14. Along the Way
15. Free Will
16. Fucked Up Kid

Crimpshrine are without a doubt the best band you’ve never heard of. Why? It’s not because they’re an up and coming band, but because their albums have been out of print for so long and still are! Crimpshrine hail from East Bay, were around at the same time as Operation Ivy, influenced bands like Green Day and Jawbreaker, and Aaron Cometbus of Cometbus fame is the drummer. This band deserves to be as well recognized as the aforementioned bands.

Each song on their two albums is an emotional punk rock powerhouse. Duct Tape Soup is less melodic than its successor, The Sound of a New World Being Born. Heavy bass, steady drums, and tearing guitars accent garbled but passionate vocals. The lyrical team of Ott and Cometbus delivers a better portrait of teenage angst than any soap opera ever could. Despite all the grit and shit people have to deal with, Crimpshrine also brings a message of hope and humanism. Like a sliver of sunshine among dense gray clouds.

Stand out tracks are “Summertime,” “Pretty Mess,” “Fucked Up Kid,” and “Closed Doors, Closed Minds,” which proudly declares “Love and friendship don’t restrict and bind/ Those chains are only in your mind.” There aren’t many albums and bands that can make you want to thrash and pluck at your heartstrings at the same time. This is one of a kind. As Jesse Michaels said in my interview with him “There are 100 shit punk bands for every good one.” We can’t let Crimpshrine get lost in the annals of punk.