Cup Finds New Sound In New Album

Cup
Nothing Could Be Wrong
Aagoo Records

Links: Official Website | Aagoo Records

Cup is a band who can easily churn out album after album of solid and gritty rock. The brainchild of Tym Wojcik, you can easily lose yourself in the volume and velocity of the music. For Nothing Could Be Wrong, things changed. . . for the better. Back in late 2017 and early 2018, Cup became a four piece with Wojcik on guitar and vocals, Freddie Wyss on bass, Chad Sardashti on synth and guitar, and Kelsey Chapstick on drums. The reason why this is critical to the dynamics of their new release is because Wocjik relinquished total control over the band and allowed for all four members to have a voice in the group’s recording creativity. And it shows. With little editing, the album feels instantaneous as the notes jump in your face.

With “Night Life,” it’s an easy initial diversion. You find yourself contorting into their jerky rhythms and acrylic echo effects with Wojcik’s voice. In a sense, you feel something so basic and primal while deep down, there is an art to this kind of spontaneity. They may be from Brooklyn, but they put a little Los Angeles seediness into their Midnight hour. And with “Hideaway,” I feel more of a Chicago feel to their freewheelin’ antics than the Brooklyn subterranean. However, the title song could be any urban sprawl from the streets near the 9:30 Club down to The Abbey in New Orleans.

With this album, we feel invincible. I envision alternative night hounds roaming the streets as stale smoke permeates the air. Is it the drugged-out haze of “When We Ride” or the out-of-body experience of “Ghost Dance.” Is it the epistemological treatise of “Swarm” or the neon psychedelic of “You Don’t Need Anybody.” Their time becomes our time, and it’s vicious, exclusive and suffices the definition of alternative rock.

Cup – Hideaway (Official Music Video)

Tracklist
01. Night Lite
02. Hideaway
03. Nothing Could Be Wrong
04. When We Ride
05. Swarm
06. Wandering
07. Bright Blue Sea
08. Wrong Animal
09. Ghost Dance
10. Strange Dreamer
11. You Don’t Need Anybody

Cup – Night Life (Official Music Video)