Album Review PUP - THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND

For the better part of a decade now, Toronto quartet PUP have channelled down into the more self-deprecating side of life to mine for inspiration, continually using their records to process their own existential dread and worries via a brand of deadpan humour. With their fourth album - the perhaps aptly-titled - ‘THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND’, they come up with the goods once again. And while a dark punk heart still beats away at the centre of their latest - tracks like ‘Totally Fine’ and ‘Waiting’ offer up glorious breakdowns and anthemic singalong opportunities - this time they’re giving a few new things a try too. Billed as loosely conceptual - hooked around the amusing, and admittedly unlikely, premise of PUP becoming a big-wig corporation - the record itself comes peppered with self-aware, piano-driven interludes (‘Four Chords’ etc) to propel its narrative, while ‘Habits’ starts all glitchy and off-beat before transforming into another rough-around-the-edges PUP classic. An enticing way to stay true to their roots, while approaching things in a fresh manner, their fourth record might still play to their self-deprecating strengths, but it also proves that they’re secretly ambitious too.