As if to dispel the stereotype that Canadians are the nicest people around, Pup’s Stefan Babcock spends the opening minutes of his band’s second album seething about how he “doesn’t wish you were dead,” he wishes “you were never born at all.” It doesn’t get much more pleasant from there.
The Dream is Over is a half-hour of channelled anger, purposeful and direct in nature. Old Wounds and DVP are hardcore punk throwbacks with gnashing teeth and snarling guitar feedback, while tracks like Sleep in the Heat and the remarkably-titled My Life is Over and I Couldn’t Be Happier get their hooks in early and refuse to let up, even in their relatively-brief runtime.
Two years on from their fist-swinging, power chord filled debut, Pup are less a different beast and more a better-trained one. They have refined both their bark and their bite, letting the music reflect everything that’s gone down between then and now. Babcock and co. might sound pissed off and exhausted throughout The Dream is Over, but that’s entirely the point. They’ve come out the other end of it better people – and a better band.
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
