"November 2025 issue.PUP is back. The Canadian punk rockers-whose name stands for Pathetic Use of Potential, a sentiment I can get behind-just put out their fifth studio album, evocatively titled Who Will Look After the Dogs? And as the title implies, it's about relationships-the bad ones. Those love affairs that curdle, those forms of dislike you can only really cultivate when you know someone a little too well."
"It's been just over six years since PUP cemented their place in the punk-rock firmament with Morbid Stuff. Before PUP, they were Topanga-named after the character from Boy Meets World, their collective first middle-school crush-and put out two EPs that sound a lot like proto-­PUP. They're a little less heavy, but the trademark catchy hooks and frenetic energy are already coming into focus."
"And that's the case here, too. The first verse of this blistering 35-minute record is: "Staring into the void now / You're going down with the ship / You're taking me with you / I don't need to resist, it's just what it is." What's not to like? It's been just over six years since PUP cemented their place in the punk-rock firmament with Morbid Stuff."
Who Will Look After the Dogs? is PUP's fifth studio album, a 35-minute punk record focused on corrosive relationships and interpersonal dislike. The opening verse captures collapse and resignation: "Staring into the void now..." The band's trajectory traces from middle-school Topanga days through a 2013 self-titled debut, heavy touring, 2016's The Dream Is Over, and the breakthrough Morbid Stuff. The 2022 album The Unraveling of PUPtheBand examined aging, success, and angst, exemplified by the chorus from "Totally Fine." Recurring motifs across releases include precise, direct songwriting about malaise and the sensation of feeling bad.
Read at The Nation
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