Hopefully you’ve been resting your vocal chords, because PUP are back with a pair of irresistible shout-along hooks. The Canadian rockers have shared the new songs “Waiting” and “Kill Something,” and you can hear them live on the band’s newly-announced 2022 North American tour.
Both tracks were produced by Peter Katis, who won a Grammy for his work with The National, and who has also stepped behind the boards for Interpol, Kurt Vile, and more. “Waiting” opens with a brief warning of drums followed by an onslaught of sludge-black guitars. The pummeling only lets up on the hook, as vocalist Stefan Babcock shows the emo heart lurking beneath the punk rock sneer. “I’m still waiting,” he howls. “Yeah, I’m still waiting right here for you/ I’m still waiting/ I’m not taking a sabbatical from you.”
In a statement, Babock said, “‘Waiting’ came about by smashing the heaviest riff Nestor [Chumak] could write with the simplest, most uplifting chorus I could write, just to see what would happen. The results were very quintessentially PUP, in that the song is a flurry of darkness and anger through the joyous lens of four guys just happy to be here, four guys who don’t take themselves seriously enough to make music that doesn’t feel like fun, regardless of the subject matter.”
“Kill Something” approaches a bad relationship from a different angle, and finds the narrator tired of doing all the work for someone who doesn’t seem to care. “Swear I’m breaking out of here,” Babcock sings, “The things you want are still unclear/ I’m sick of gnawing on these tired bones/ While you cycle through the words I know.” The pining in the meldoy almost disguises a sinister edge, and after all that moping, it’s easy to miss the threat behind, “Just wanna kill something I love!” Via a press release, “Kill Something” is about Babcock’s dog, Moose, who always destroys his favorite things and then feels sad. Moose sounds like a very good boy, and you can check out the tracks “Waiting” and “Kill Something” below.
