Album Review: Pup – “Morbid Stuff”

By: Kirstin Bews –
Follow @kirstyisla__

Toronto’s punk powerhouse, PUP, are releasing their new album, Morbid Stuff, on April 5th via their new label Little Dippe. Dave Schiffman (Weezer, Cass McCombs, The Mars Volta) produced, recorded and mixed Morbid Stuff, which pushes their classic style with all-here vocals, strong guitar work and dark lyrical narratives.

Morbid Stuff carries on from PUP’s previous successes, bringing their usual ethos of fun and emotional wreckage. The album takes a real look into Babcock’s fight with depression with a rollercoaster of gleeful chaos that dips into a bleak oblivion, but nevertheless, continues moving forward. In classic PUP fashion, humour is used as a coping mechanism while depicting scenes of heartbreak, broken dreams, and self-loathing. If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry. This is the perfect mantra for Morbid Stuff as the subject matter is dark, but it is also lyrically hilarious. The music carries a lighthearted tone as often, a heavy barrage of hardcore punk noise is coupled with a light, folky guitar that strums away quietly in the background. Lively all-here choruses evaporate into chants that echo through until the end creating a lasting impression. PUP have grown on from their pure anginstic rage to a fine-tuned rage that seeks to understand that the rage is its own fault and downfall.

Debut single “Kids” opens with a catchy guitar riff and light drumbeat that contrasts with Babcock’s gravelly voice shouting, “just like the kids, I’ve been navigating my way through the mind-numbing reality of a godless existence”. It’s a love song, although straying away from the ‘perfect love’ stereotype, “Kids” is a love story between two nihilistic depressives. Finding someone who sees the world through the same bleak periscope as you, everything seems a little clearer and lighter. The music video is set in a dystopian Toronto of 2059. The future of the band members are foretold with Chumack being told, “fuck off dad” as the opening riff pipes up. It’s a story of friendship throughout time, and although things age and die out, friendship doesn’t have to.

Platonic relationships might not die out, but romantic relationships sure can. Heartbreak is a pivotal theme inMorbid Stuff. “See You At Your Funeral” centers on the hurt of trying to move on while wanting to better yourself, despite being unsure of yourself. “I tried vegan food, I take up meditation”, sings a self-critical sounding Babcock. The song illustrates the scenario of seeing an old flame in a grocery store, and wondering what they think about the ‘healthy selections’ in your cart. Finally, bravely, you approach to “ask how you’ve been, not that it’s any of my business, but you know, I’ve always been a little masochistic”. This is before the bold chorus sarcastically rips, “I hope you’re doing fine on your own, cause after everything we’ve been through, you better hope you’ll find someone, and you’ll try but you won’t”. In a perfect world, we’d wish well on our exes yet, PUP understand this isn’t a reality when you’re hurting, relatably expressing “I hope somehow I never see you again and if I do it’s at your funeral, better yet I hope the world explodes, I hope we die.”

All in all, Morbid Stuff is all the things that PUP fans know and love, dialed up to 11. It’s full of rage, but a rage of understanding that promotes insight of hurt, heartbreak and death. A beautiful reminder that humour can be found in the deepest and darkest of moments, where it can be used as a torch to find others that can relate to your situation. As expressed in “Scorpion Hill”, “if the world’s gonna burn, everyone should get a turn to light it up”.