Album: This Place Sucks A** Artist: PUP Year: 2020
Canadian pop-punk outlet PUP has been releasing music that could make any punk fan bang their head or want to jump around just from the sheer energy they put into each ad every album. However, that’s not to say that each album has the same exact energy.
Their first self-titled album ‘PUP’ started a self-depreciating spiral that talked of loss self-anger and wishing for so much more from a sad anxiety-strewn life. Their success of this album led them on a tour that spanned multiple years and caused their lead singer, Stefan Babcock to develop a major polyp within his vocal chords which led him to need to be away from music for a long period of time after to redevelop his voice. During this break though, Babcock saw a ear nose and throat doctor who gave him some of the most unfortunate news he would hear, that his “dream was over”. This would then title their second, and most popular album “The Dream is Over”. This album took the sound from their first album and not only redefined it, but did it to a level that was just as well reviewed as their first album.
It would be three years until PUP would release another album, and this their fourth album that released to similar, yet slightly lesser reviews. However this didn’t stop PUP from exploring musical themes that made it definitely more pop than punk on the pop-punk spectrum and it seems that people, including this reviewer were looking for something more on the punk side of the spectrum yet again. Not even a year later however, this would be gifted to fans through a 2020 self-isolation created EP called “This Place Sucks A**”.
“This Place Sucks A**” as described previously is an album that while composed of songs supposedly recorded in 2019, perfectly encapsulates the angst and quarantined self-isolation that the 2020 pandemic brought onto all of us. The themes of this album span from feelings of hate spawning from inside you when left alone with your own thoughts, to laughing at your own overreactions. From yearning lost lovers, to hatred of the stagnate lifestyle that self-isolation brings on all of us.
The first track ‘Rot’, describes feelings of how Babcock constantly has feelings of self-hatred that well up in himself that can become so intense that it really feel it can ‘rot’ you from the inside. The second track, ‘Anaphalaxis’ literally describes a scenario where Babcock’s friend was sent to the hospital via ambulance due to an allergic reaction from a bee sting, but figuratively reminded him of how there were instances where he felt like he was going to die due to anxiety or immense stress, despite the realistic implications of his scenarios. ‘Nothing Changes’ is quite literally Babcock’s description of how he wishes he could change aspects of his life, but has no initiative to do so. The song ‘Floodgates’ describes how Babcock wakes up night after night surrounded by drugs and other vices as he tries to cope with the death of one of his friends. Finally, the song ‘Edmonton’ talks about how even though Babcock told jokes about his friend at his funeral to cope, he realized later that night in a drunken stupor that despite being at one friend’s funeral, he’s missed too many others for his own good.
This EP really brought back what I was missing from PUP and despite it only being 17 minutes, it almost makes me happy that I can listen to it on repeat more. From here on out I hope I can see similar material from PUP of this quality.
This Place Sucks A** gets a 10/10
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