ALBUM REVIEW: PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs?
Living can feel like shit sometimes; this music sure doesn't.
Maybe one of these days, PUP will cheer up. Knowing from experience, it’s so unbelievably toxic on your mind to stew on your personal insecurities, let alone rage out to them. But I also know from the experience of listening to PUP for years that they’re nearly peerless in their ability to express these pained emotions. When paired with their raucous approach to pop punk, it’s rarely sounded so good feeling this bad. Their latest album is as noisy as they’ve sounded in a while, hearkening back to their roots while maintaining the slickness that made the The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND and Morbid Stuff click. These are anthems of self-dread that are profoundly personal, never succumbing to anything but human desires blown up to gargantuan proportions.
Self-hatred has always been PUP’s way, but they’d never succeed to the level they have by doing it the same way every time over. Singer Stefan Babcock encompasses every which way one can feel awful in the most human of ways. He’s tired of feeling used when his partner’s at wit’s end on “Concrete”, but you always get the sense he couldn’t live without them anyway. “Hunger For Death” channels that thought with the stupid simplicity of a line like “Fuck everyone on this planet/except for you”. That insult includes himself, of course, and at times the instrumentals reflect the album’s overwhelming negativity. Opener “No Hope” is so cacophonous you can barely make out the lyrics. It’s better conveyed on “Get Dumber”, a Jeff Rosenstock-assisted highlight where the duo tries not to get dragged further under by their loved ones.
Babcock has always sung with an earnestness that makes this level of loathing bearable; it also helps when so many choruses are as singalong as depression pop can be. PUP is at their best when they’re festival ready, like “Best Revenge”, where you’ll scream along about knowing how to get back at your ex even though you don’t have the capacity to do so. “Cruel” sees itself out with an extended coda that builds on the excellent first part, only after Babcock admits his attitude was a bit too much this time. “Olive Garden” and “Hallways” continue the singalong trend, finding themselves desiring to see someone again, even if deep down they know things won’t turn out the way they want it to. And for as down in the dumps as things are, the band’s approach to punk gleams. It’s like the music’s brightness is the only salvation against the dread, opening the tiniest hole in the cloudy sky to let some sun through.
If not the narrative journey that their last record was, Who Will Look After The Dogs? is proof PUP are still masters of their domain. It’s often familiar but never boring, and best when it gets loud. “Get Dumber” and “Paranoid” are proof of this; the shriller Babcock gets, the more the blistering the emotions get. No matter its volume, this is an incredibly polished album. That’s almost a necessity to not let the panic cause things to fall apart. At this point PUP knows better than anyone how to keep things together. Yeah, living sucks sometimes, but at least the music doesn’t.
Verdict: 7.9/10
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