PUP TAKE IT BACK TO THE VAN -- LITERALLY -- FOR A QUARANTINED PERFORMANCE OF NEW SONG “ANAPHYLAXIS”
WATCH AND SHARE “ANAPHYLAXIS” LIVE QUARANTINED PERFORMANCE HERE
BUY / STREAM “ANAPHYLAXIS” HERE
MORBID STUFF OUT NOW VIA LITTLE DIPPER / UNIVERSAL MUSIC CANADA
STREAM / BUY MORBID STUFF HERE
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Toronto’s PUP released the massive Morbid Stuff last year to critical acclaim, earning countless year-end nods, their late-night debut on Late Night With Seth Meyers, and a largely sold-out world tour that had them on the road for a solid 9 months. They returned a few weeks ago with “Anaphylaxis,” their first new material of 2020, and now they have created their first quarantine-induced performance for the single. After a few, uh, less successful attempts, PUP share an incredible video of the new single, performed live for the first time, straight from their respective homes (and tour van!).
Says lead singer Stefan Babcock about the video: “During our quarantine, I couldn’t go to our jam space. I also live in a small apartment and my neighbours understandably get very annoyed and/or concerned about my mental state when they hear me yelling my head off about getting stung by bees or killing my bandmates or whatever garbage these dumb songs are about. So I started making demos and recording in my car in a parking lot across the street from my house. Every few minutes, cops would slowly drive past to see what the unhinged kid in the busted up Ford Escape was doing. But I’m white, so lucky me, my biggest worry was that they’d judge my precious lyrics. White privilege is real. Defund the police.”
Additionally, PUP have put Morbid Stuff-themed masks up for sale now, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Trans Toolkits Collective, supporting trans, two-spirit, and non-binary people in Toronto dealing with gender dysphoria and being hit especially hard by COVID-19 by delivering personalized toolkits of gender essential items. Click HERE to grab a mask and support!
Riot Fest in Chicago just announced its initial lineup for 2021, and PUP will be performing -- hopefully without their Morbid Stuff masks. Get your tickets HERE.
Formed in Toronto five years ago, PUP, comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladkowski, quickly became favourites 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. Their most recent album, Morbid Stuff, landed on countless year-end lists, saw the band making their late night debut on Late Night With Seth Meyers, and resulted in sold out shows the world over. 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. It’s the most insightful, sweetest, funniest, sickest, angriest, saddest and most inescapably desperate collection of songs they’ve recorded to date.
Photo Credit : Jess Baumung // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
PRAISE FOR MORBID STUFF
"Morbid Stuff just still sounds like friends having fun and making catchy, cathartic punk anthems for teens and almost-adults alike — offering a brief, but much needed respite from the hell that is everyday life...their strongest album to date." - Exclaim! (9/10)
“Morbid Stuff is one of the best fast-and-loud records you’ll hear this year...While they’re filed under “punk” at the record store, that label doesn’t begin to do them justice.” - Georgia Straight
“A stupidly catchy and thoroughly good-humoured collection of shout-along anthems...the album is like a big, warm hug from a close friend who’s finally lured you out of your darkened apartment after three days in bed telling you you’re not alone, you’re not the first person to be sad and you will get through this,” - Toronto Star
"'Morbid Stuff' is the angriest PUP has ever sounded. But it’s not a cry for help. It’s a cry of freedom, the sound of a band realizing that anger is liberating..." - Pitchfork (7.9)
"Morbid Stuff [is] another collection of explosively catchy anthem/tantrums...[PUP] still sound about as vibrant and youthful as a rock band can. It’s invigorating. It’s harrowing. It rules. Fuck with it." - Stereogum
"These guys are heroes." - NPR Music's Robin Hilton
"Along with the band’s songwriting, Babcock’s point of view has sharpened further and grown even more candid, grappling with his own depression and repurposing the band’s most crippling doubts into addictive hooks." - Vulture
"With 'Morbid Stuff,' the Toronto band made the best album of their career." - Noisey
""PUP’s third album Morbid Stuff is by far their best yet, and already one of the best punk albums of the year." - Brooklyn Vegan
"The beauty of PUP is that the band writes confident, catchy punk songs that are fueled, almost exclusively, by anxiety and indecision. On ['Morbid Stuff'], PUP offers up a new batch of songs that all play like stadium-punk anthems, but Stefan Babcock is still singing about every stupid thing he’s ever said or done. " - The A.V. Club
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