New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Toronto, Ontario's very own punk powerhouse - PUP - recently announced their excellent new record Morbid Stuff, set for release on April 5th via
Little Dipper/Rise Records. The album's visceral, wildfire first single "Kids" has already received praise from the likes of NPR, The FADER, Noisey, Stereogum, and more, and today it receives an incredible, futuristic and "bleak as fuck" Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux-directed music video. "Jeremy cooked up this hilarious concept of what all of our lives would be like 40 years in the future," explains Stefan Babcock. "Our goal was to sorta set viewers up for this happy feel-good ending, and then at the last minute, crush them with darkness. Just like life in the present, most things in the future will probably turn out shit, or, if we're really lucky, fine at best."
This Spring, PUP will embark on a North America, UK and
Europe tour in support ofMorbid Stuff. New York, Los Angeles Chicago, and
Boston have all sold out, as well as all U.K. and all Canadian dates. See below to find a show near you, and grab your tickets as these are selling fast.
Formed in Toronto five years ago, PUP -- comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladowski -- quickly became favorites of the punk scene with their first two, critically-beloved albums, winning accolades everywhere from the New York Times to Pitchfork, from NPR and Rolling Stone, and more. Now, with Morbid Stuff, PUP have grown up and doubled down on everything that made you love their first two records. It's gang's-all-here vocals, guitarmonies, and lyrics about death. Lots of them.
Fitting to their ethos, their new album takes the dichotomy of fun and emotional wreckage in their songs and teeters between gleeful chaos and bleak oblivion while wielding some of the best choruses the band has ever written. Morbid Stuff is also a pretty intense foray into singer Stefan Babcock's fight with depression, and shows, in perfect PUP fashion, how taking responsibility of his own depression lead him to....laughter. Admitting his depression allowed Babcock to laugh in its face, and the result is that marriage of darkness and joy that made PUP who they are, but in a brand new way.
Indeed, despite its dark subject matter, at times Morbid Stuff is funny as hell, even in the music. It's the most insightful, sweetest, funniest, sickest, angriest, saddest and most inescapably desperate collection of songs they've recorded to date. If their self-titled record was the fuse and The
Dream Is Over was the bomb going off,Morbid Stuff is your family sifting through the rubble, only to find you giggling while you bleed to death.
