THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND is not a departure from what got PUP here, really; for all the new breadth, this is still very much the fourth album by the band that has spun songs about The Bad Decisions Lifestyle into scrappy art.

The hooks are as bright and barbed as always; the poison threaded through every song is no less potent. But a fourth album should be different from the first, or even the third, and THE UNRAVELING is. THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND is that next step-not towards perfection, or even towards some more perfect version of writing songs about fucking up, but just in the direction of its choice. It's a product of this endless awful broader moment, but also very much a step forward into that uncertainty. "The whole album process really brought us closer together, even as things unraveled," Babcock says. "It's hands down my favorite PUP record, and I don't think it could've been made under any other circumstances."