Sub­mit­ted by AJ Gar­cia

Flip­per has to have had one of the liveli­est sto­ries in punk rock his­tory. The band has gone through sev­eral change ups due mostly to drug related deaths or other drug con­cerns, their switch over from Sub­ter­ranean Records to Rick Rubens now defunct Zero Label is a story within itself, but more sur­pris­ingly is the story of a band that should have failed but never could. Love, recorded in 2008, is a tes­ta­ment to the old say­ing that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but why would you want to when your dog is already bad ass enough?

Flip­per, despite the many change ups within the band, is still dirty punk rock. The first thought that came to mind was that this would be what it would sound like if you put on a Rollins Band album and tossed your stereo down the stairs, exten­sion cord in hand of course. Love is an album that is loud like two cars com­ing together at high speeds and lead singer Bruce Loose spits out lyrics that are sim­ple, basic, and with­out much depth with an ani­mos­ity that doesn’t seem to have fal­tered much since he took over for 6 month front man Ricky Williams who was given the boot. Along on this album is for­mer Nir­vana bassist Krist Novoselic whose cred­ited, along with the rest of the band, for writ­ing the new mate­r­ial. Novoselic seem­ingly came and went after the record­ings sight­ing fam­ily oblig­a­tions opt­ing not to tour with the band. His replace­ment, Rachel Thoele, is for­merly of Frightwig. Other then that the sound remains the same.

Old school fans of the band will more then likely flock to the new album and those who have caught the late train for the old school Amer­i­can Punk sound will prob­a­bly need a few lis­tens to get used to what it is Flip­per is all about. Either way the album stands as a state­ment that old school punk rock is in fact not dead.