When we last heard from Jake Cook, aka Seal Pup, he was in the midst of unveiling what he declared to be his most honest collection of music. Released in November of 2017, the eight tracks on Always Next Year EP found the songwriter serving up unabashed pop songs full of rousing grooves and earnest emotion. Since then, he’s divided his time between stand-up comedy and one-off projects like Schroeder and scrappy punksters SMALL, but with “Cringe Compilation,” the lead single from the forthcoming I Bleed Pop, Cook returns to the business of cranking out stirring, no frills solo jams full of sharp hooks and barbed personal insights.
“I took the path made by dumb fucks,” Cook observes wryly at the song’s outset before launching into the track’s shambling fuzz-rock riff. The whole thing is coated in an aura of Pavement style ‘90s slacker rock—all lo-fi grit and sloppy, self-deprecating expressionism. Over the course of nearly three-and-a-half ramshackle minutes, the song stomps and swaggers along, cutting an oddly euphoric path through the dark tension contained in Cook’s lyrics. “Fight like a brave ’til the pain stops / Beat myself with rock ’til I bleed pop,” he sings, a painful admission that his creative breakthroughs rarely arrive without considerable hurt and sacrifice.
Listen below.
I Bleed Pop will be out later this year.
More Info
Bandcamp: sealpupatl.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @jakecookmusic