It’s easy to root for PUP, even when it seems like they don’t want you to. Frontman Stefan Babcock would much rather you sling mud at his melodic punk-rock band or tell him you’re sick of his shit. After all, he’s spent five albums disgusted with his own self-loathing and profusely apologizing for it. “Trust me, I get it,” he says with an eye roll on the opening track to their latest record, Who Will Look After the Dogs? But from the jump, PUP swapped pop-punk’s key traits of angst and apathy for depression and deep concern. It’s what gave the Toronto stalwarts an edge of maturity over their peers, even if they hid it by crushing beer cans and pledging allegiance to perpetual heartbreak.
That perspective is rare within the genre, which rewards staying young at heart forever onstage. But eventually, performers stop recognizing the stickers on the green room’s scratched-up mirror and start noticing their crow’s feet instead. It’s a game of musical cryogenics where contestants like the Wonder Years still have to yell, “Jesus Christ, I’m 26!” at age 39, or the Menzingers are still rhetorically asking what comes after your 20s as they stare down their 40s. Addressing the insecurities of aging without souring a melody is tricky, particularly when fans crave heart-pounding, carefree shout-alongs. Learning how to mature alongside your work, though, is what separates the middle-age deniers from the mindful adults. On Who Will Look After the Dogs?, PUP has filled out an application form to join the latter demographic.
The lifelong struggle with mental health that Babcock sings about isn’t on his shoulders alone; all of his bandmates—guitarist Steve Sladkowski, bassist Nestor Chumak, and drummer Zack Mykula—have confessed to carrying that weight in their own lives at times. Thankfully, Babcock has learned to frame bouts of self-destruction as annoying obstacles to overcome, not justifications for self-pity, a distinction that allows PUP to act their age. When vindictive detractors once again taunt him on “Get Dumber,” he doesn’t take the bait. It helps that he’s literally got friends by his side, with Jeff Rosenstock sharing vocal duties and exemplifying how to shrug off the stress, like filling in a forgotten line with “Ohhh, lyrics.” PUP wouldn’t be PUP without their intoxicating self-contempt or knowing winks to break the fourth wall. Here, however, there’s an air of responsibility when Babcock resists the urge to go all-in, as do his bandmates when dialing back their typically rowdy hooks a notch.
PUP’s discography has always looked inward with its criticisms, but Who Will Look After the Dogs? shifts its focus from anxiety over Babcock’s mistakes to the disorienting experience of watching his peers lap him on the milestones track; while his bandmates celebrated marriage and had kids, Babcock’s decade-long relationship imploded. The impulse to indulge somewhat childish reactions weakens two album cuts: “Paranoid” soundtracks a bitter breakup dispute with the riled-up noise-punk format of past PUP songs, losing some of its bite in the retread; and the tongue-in-cheek “Olive Garden,” rife with spite for Christian hypocrisy and the forced expectations of dates, offers dissonant vocal harmonies and a sloshed chorus, a queasy enough combo to make even endless garlic breadsticks unappetizing. Both offer the pained awkwardness of a preteen growth spurt.
When PUP prioritize forward momentum, both in music and lyrics, their songs take off with ease, even if it means leaving behind the party vibes they’re adored for. “When one door closes, it might never open/There might be no other doors,” Babcock frets in “Hallways,” one of the album’s most deceptively optimistic tracks. A bright guitar melody steers him away from pessimism and towards a sliver of perseverance: the reminder that your dog needs you, from which the album takes its title. On upbeat earworms like “Concrete” and “Cruel,” Babcock learns how to be the bigger person and how to part ways with whatever drains you. Fans may rally around Babcock’s self-deprecating tirades of the past, but hearing him embrace self-improvement, however much he downplays it, has a special ring to it.
In a first for PUP, the best tracks on their album are slow songs and mid-tempo romps, which bolster Who Will Look After the Dogs? after its rambunctious opening track. Chumak and Mykula’s rhythm section gives “Needed to Hear It” and “Falling Outta Love” lively grooves despite the songs’ low tempos. It’s album closer “Shut Up” that steals the show, though. Plagued by imposter syndrome and suffering wintertime blues, Babcock can’t help contrasting his futile songs with his partner’s masters thesis research; life as a punk band seems cool until you recognize it indulges arrested development. John Congleton’s production turns lo-fi and cold: bare electric guitar strums, ripped straight from the privacy of someone’s bedroom mid-nervous breakdown; gentle cymbal taps and syncopated drumming. Then, the full band joins in, and as their voices intertwine with Babcock’s, scooping him up from the floor, PUP sound closer than just friends or bandmates. They’re in this together for the long haul, growing pains and all.
