In their fifth studio album, Who Will Look After The Dogs?, the Canadian four-piece PUP careen through twelve tracks of crunchy, anthemic punk rock with the sense that the wheels might fall off at any moment. The band have leant heavily into this theme throughout their fifteen-year career, and singer-writer-guitarist Stefan Babcock characteristically wears his heart on his sleeve throughout this raucous full-length that does not let up. Babcock is joined in PUP by childhood friends Nestor Chumak (bass), Steve Sladkowski (guitar), and Zack Mykula (drums).
PUP – Who Will Look After The Dogs?
Release Date: 2 May 2025
Words: James De Guerre
After a brief moment of feedback and a blurred four-count on the crash cymbal, No Hope casts us headlong into the album with the pace and energy of a group who are not here to waste our time or mince their words.
The whole band drives through the first verse before hitting the first group-sung chorus of many on the record, a feature typical of PUP, and relished by fans both inside and outside the mosh pit at their energetic concerts. After a more nuanced second verse, the final chorus and bridge end the number almost as fast as it began, and we are left floating in distant, ethereal guitar sounds.
The respite does not last long, as distortion takes over and builds up to the initial instrumental stabs, which powerfully launch Olive Garden, the ensuing interplay between eruptive bursts and quieter sections (replete with backing ‘ahs’) balancing the song nicely.
While PUP’s lyrics regularly deal with matters of existence and meaning, here they take a more explicitly critical turn against North American religion, even if quickly followed with a quintessentially Canadian, “I’m sorry for what I said.”
The band’s previous full-length, The Unravelling Of PUPTheBand from 2022, was a more experimental record and poked at the boundaries of what should be deemed punk, even while situated firmly inside that genre (in this writer’s humble opinion).
Who Will Look After The Dogs?, despite following significant personal changes for all the band members, seems more like a return to the core elements of what has made the group adored by fans the world over.
However, this time it provides an overview of Babcock’s personal journey from his youth, rather than simply chronicling his most recent six months as he has done previously.
Some of those fans were able to hear the next track, Concrete, during PUP’s busy touring schedule in 2024, which included seven nights in Europe playing in support of Jimmy Eat World. Babcock’s words paint fleeting vignettes from his past over sometimes grunge-y guitar work and interesting bass lines to culminate in a sing-along hook, casting a spell of wistful nostalgia over the listener.
PUP fans will not be disappointed with the thoughtful and self-aware songwriting throughout the collection, which, as with much of their work, is peppered with equal doses of humour and the macabre.
Looking in the eyes of those in the pit at a PUP gig or reading through PUP related online communities, it is clear their fans are an emotional bunch. And yet, although there are plenty of songs to make grown people cry, Babcock believes there is also a sense of hope that permeates through the tracks in the second half of the LP.
Long time friend of the band, Jeff Rosenstock (a punk artist in the same niche) offers backing vocals on the next storming piece on the album, Getting Dumber, which is also the third track to be released so far.
Hunger For Death follows, with a subdued introduction over swinging, synthetic strings in 6/8, creating a gentle tone which is nevertheless belied by the acerbic lyrics and later a jarring guitar solo once the piece has fully built.
Needed To Hear It follows and offers another chantable refrain over a mid-tempo epic of a song before moving to the first release, Paranoid.
In a tribute to band merchandise throughout the ages, the official video to Paranoid takes us through a PUP concert as though on a phone in portrait mode, displaying the song’s lyrics as they are sung, through t-shirts, stickers, graffiti, and eventually blood and other mess on the floor, the first half of the video being shot in a single take.
An unusual but highly effective change in pace halfway through the track absorbs the listener (and breaks the music video into multiple shots), after which the piece gradually and ominously grinds to a dramatic halt.
Falling Outta Love gives more prominence to the instruments in the mix, producing an extensive and melancholic sound throughout, and finishes abruptly with the reverb-laden “Nothing is enough”.
The second release from the album, Hallways, has a stadium-filling chorus, after which the six-strings drop to allow the driving bass and drums to underline the morose query which points towards the album’s title: “I can’t die yet, ’cause who would look after the dog?”
The energy does not relent through Cruel (which ‘cruelly’ fakes an ending before closing with what sounds like parallel solos played in chaotic stereo), nor Best Revenge, a sardonic piece about coping with breaking up by “living well”.
Shut Up rounds off the record perfectly, quietly building towards a loud, distorted and synthetic close in what is perhaps the most experimental cut on the record.
The band have said that the producer John Congleton (who has worked with the likes of St. Vincent, Death Cab For Cutie, and Mannequin Pussy) helped them get out of their own heads in recording the LP, and it has clearly paid off.
Who Will Look After The Dogs? brings the distinctive atonality of much of PUP’s music together with panned electric guitars, which blend perfectly throughout the mix, all the while retaining the raw frenzy of a punk outfit who show no signs of slowing down.
Named for Babcock’s grandmother’s view of playing in a rock band (a Pathetic Use of Potential), the prolific tourers have played almost one thousand shows now and will continue with over fifty dates announced this year.
This includes nine shows in the UK, which will culminate at O2 Forum Kentish Town in London in May. Come and see me in the pit, and we will shout gang vocals into each other’s smiling, sweaty faces – along with everyone else.
Who Will Look After The Dogs? is out on the 2 May 2025 via Little Dipper / Rise Records and can be pre-ordered here.
PUP – European Dates:
18/05/2025 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Melkweg
20/05/2025 – Cologne, Germany @ Club Volta
21/05/2025 – Hamburg, Germany @ Logo
22/05/2025 – Berlin, Germany @ Hole44
23/05/2025 – Munich, Germany @ Strom
25/05/2025 – Paris, France @ Bellevilloise
27/05/2025 – Madrid, Spain @ Sala Mon
28/05/2025 – Barcelona, Spain @ Upload
29/05/2025 – València, Spain @ Loco Club
30/05/2025 – San Sebastian, Spain @ Dabadaba​​​​​​
