The Tunnel Rats
Our War is Never Over (Baloney Shrapnel)
by Chaz Thorndike
Originally titled Douchebag, Our War is Never Over was retitled ’cause The Tunnel Rats are a bunch of pussies. Man, they probably only put out this album ’cause their fuckin’ bar tabs racked up too high and they had to. Why else would they’ve compiled 26 songs (9 covers and a “bonus track” called “I Ate Joe King’s Breakfast”), many of which were released on 7″ with cool-ass pictures of guns and strippers? Yeah, “Live Free or Die” my hairy ass! I’m kidding. Ya really gotta grasp at straws to accuse The Tunnel Rats of being anything other than true, red-blooded rock’n’roll. They don’t tune, they rarely stay in time (evidently, they like their songs as loose as their women), and they all play each other’s instruments as much (and as sloppily) as they play their own. Much of the production was done by Queers drummer Hugh O’Neill. Songs 1-12 were recorded in late ’96, including four tracks with Wimpy, the original singer of The Queers, on vocals, a version of “I Love Young Cunt” (not to be confused with the old Queers tune “I Want Cunt”), covers of three Redd Kross songs, a Hollywood Squares song, an Angry Samoans song, and the soon-to-be-classic “Fuck That Weak Shit.” Songs 13-15 were on the Sons and Daughters of this Savage Land comp on Hardline Records and they sound kinda poppy in comparison. Songs 16-18 are true drunk punk destruction, released on the 7″Going to Marty’s, including G.G. Allin’s “Tough Fucking Shit” which, of course, is awesome. G.G. Allin’s “Die When You Die,” originals “Run For Your Life” and “Rollins is a Gay Boy,” and the Fear-inspired “I Love Living in New Hampshire” were released on the Run For Your Life, It’s The Tunnel Rats 7″, while Sabbath’s “Symptom of the Universe” and three or four other songs have never been released. I don’t think. The Tunnel Rats are loud, crude, destructive, have a thing for guns, booze, young girls, and hate homos. The world needs the Tunnel Rats to keep nature in balance now that every mother-cuddling sissy is into the pop they call punk.
