PUP – “Kill Something”

Toronto pop-punk group PUP have announced their upcoming tour and released two brand new tracks to mark the occasion – the gritty, incendiary “Waiting” and the slow-burn, high-build “Kill Something.” Both tracks are the latest from the group since their 2020 EP This Place Sucks Ass, featuring the incredible lead single “Anaphylaxis,” which only solidified their now signature high-energy, confessional, self-aware, stream-of-consciousness style. PUP have always viewed things like pain, darkness, and rage “through the joyous lens of four guys just happy to be here,” and because of this, they’re truly unlike any other punk group working today. 

Of the two singles, “Kill Something” stood out due to its gradual crescendo, the slow, introspective verses, marked by triumphant horns, that later grow into something far more existential. In the chorus, frontman Stefan Babcock asks “if I’ve got nothing to prove/ why do I do the things I do?” Babcock explained the track in a recent press release, which is comparably more lighthearted than what the track expresses on the surface:

“Kill Something” is about my puppy Moose destroying everything that he loves and then being sad that it is destroyed. DOGS TRULY ARE A REFLECTION OF THEIR OWNERS.

“Just want to kill something I love,” Babcock admits, soaked in the dense haze of lo-fi guitar; he speaks to an unconscious fear of admiring something so much that, ironically, everything you do in its favor simultaneously has the potential to lower its overall value, its charm, whatever makes it beautiful. Hell, I find myself feeling that way a lot when writing about music, literature, or art – there’s always a desire to make it your entire focus, to get every detail right, not knowing that this hyperfocus and dissecting can actually render it unable to be put back together again as it once was. It’s nice to know other people feel the same way, and that, perhaps, it’s just an indication of yet another annoying complexity in the human condition. 

“Waiting”/ “Kill Something” are out now. Check out the tour dates here.

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photo courtesy of artist