Toronto punk band PUP is coming to The Blue Note — here's how it made its best record yet

The sound of punk rock is rueful piano chords and a singer turning the screws on friends of friends who "haven't listened to any new music since college — it all makes them sick to their stomachs."

The sound of punk rock is a wave of trumpet and guitar sweeping a song along, carrying it from certain failure to cinematic fulfillment.

Punk is expressed in deliberate synthesizers and scuffed-up slide solos. And it's heard as guitars thread together, like two friends' hands laced just before diving from a cliff into the frothing sea below.

Notes of risk and reward, tension and resolution — they're all part of the glorious noise Toronto punk-rockers PUP make on their fourth and latest record, "The Unraveling Of PUPTHEBAND." PUP will braid its musical threads back together into at least four chords next week when it headlines The Blue Note.

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Much has been made the band's expanded horizons on "Unraveling". But the PUP sound has always been a bundle of musical dynamite, full of fits and starts, breakdowns and combustible crescendos.

It's a point of pride for the band, lead guitarist Steve Sladkowski said.

"The music on the first three records especially — and I think, to some degree, this record too — it is accessible on first listen," he said. "But what we always try to do is work in such a way — for those people who do want repeat listening, there’s going to be stuff that reveals itself that you might not have heard right away."

In this way, "Unraveling" both does and doesn't feel different to the band, Sladkowski added.

From lockdown to creative freedom

The record represents a push-and-pull — between intimacy and experimentation, as well as the rhythms of lockdown and reunion that marked the pandemic in which it was created.

Like most, the members of PUP — which includes singer-guitarist Stefan Babcock, bassist Nestor Chumak and drummer Zack Mykula — spent months in isolation when lockdown began. The band went without a respite for so long that, to have an "emergency brake pulled," led to feelings of "whiplash," Sladkowski said.

Filling his days with books and other small pleasures, Sladkowski rode the same seesaw as so many. He internalized a sense of guilt, but also appreciated how even "forced downtime" is a rarity in the world of a independent band.

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Eventually PUP's members returned to a small rehearsal space, installing an air purifier and writing music for themselves. By summer 2021, the band took a solid start to "Unraveling" into the Connecticut-based digs of producer Peter Katis (Death Cab for Cutie, Kurt Vile, Frightened Rabbit); it's a space described as a "sprawling residence-slash-studio" in press materials.

Weaving accounts together, the experience of holing up at Katis' place, completely blurring the lines between art and life, was both special and strange. And the record bears that out.

"You can hear the band start to fall off the cliff, and because of that, I think this record is our truest and most genuine to date," Babcock said in press materials. "There is nothing more PUP than a slow and inevitable descent into self-destruction."

Katis cleared physical and creative room, allowing the band a freedom that really shaped the record, Sladkowski said. Ideas conceived in the studio share the album with original demo recordings, establishing a true through-line between various stages of creation, he added.

Saying goodbye at the end of a regular workday, Katis gave PUP run of the place, resulting in parts recorded through inventive bedroom setups, Sladkowski said.

PUP no longer felt confined by any punk aesthetic, self-imposed or otherwise.

"This is a band that, until this record, out of some weird f--ked up sense of misguided pride or idiocy, felt that we should never use any instruments aside from drums, bass, and guitars,” Babcock said in press materials.

"We quickly came to realize that the instrumentation isn’t what makes PUP songs PUP. It’s the songs themselves, finding this balance between heavy and melodic, dark and fun, pushing the limits of our writing chops and musicianship in a way that makes us laugh and also want to smash s--t."

Little to prove

So many memorable moments emerge from "Unraveling." PUP stays faithful to the instincts Sladkowski and Babcock describe by widening and narrowing the view or assigning a core feature of the band's approach to a new musical voice.

"Four Chords" opens the record with something akin to Babcock playing piano from within a confessional booth; the literal sound of one's mistakes is swallowed up, forgiven by a vivid rock 'n' roll symphony.

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Its immediate successor, "Totally Fine," is all bash and chorus hooks — until it crawls toward quiet, pained revelation. Babcock's lyrics underline PUP's capacity for discussing mental health on and off its records:

"I've got all I need / Except a way to sleep at night / Pushing through the deep / I've got all I need, but still."

Whether on "Unraveling" or previous efforts, the band admits more than most, tethering itself to listeners who might be between their rock and a truly hard place.

Later, a massive singalong imbues "Robot Writes a Love Song" with a very human element. "Waiting" is all guitar tension and melodic release, as Sladkowski and Co. feint toward modal, metal patterns. "Habits" foregrounds skittering synths, then makes the most of a chord progression that dates back to rock's earliest days on the radio.

"Cutting off the Corners" shows off the other side of the band's interest in electronic sound, droning notes ushering PUP toward its version of soul music.

Making the record, Sladkowski enjoyed watching distinctions dissipate. Where once he was the clear lead and Babcock supplied the rhythm parts, certain passages capture their guitars blending into one. He also found himself coaxing guitar sounds that didn't sound like guitars at all, he said.

These moments find Sladkowski lining up behind favorite guitarists like Marc Ribot or Wilco's Nels Cline, musicians who can play the hero but also prize texture and giving the song whatever it needs.

Sladkowski no longer feels "the imperative" to prove himself as a guitarist, he said. And "Unraveling" is swept up in a similar spirit. If the album proves anything, it's that PUP is fully ready to be itself in song.

Pup plays The Blue Note at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9, with Palehound and The OBGMs. Tickets are $25-30. Visit https://thebluenote.com/ for more details.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How Toronto's PUP wed dark and light to make its best record yet