Peaceful indie punk.

Cusp’s second album What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back (WIWDWMB) marks a new beginning for the band. Now located in Chicago, Cusp is settled in and unified as five committed band members: Jen Bender (guitar, vocals), Gaelen Bates (guitar), Matt Manes (bass), Tommy Moore (drums, percussion, vocals) and Tessa O’Connell (synths, piano, vocals). This album will have you making a new playlist called “Hammock Time,” dedicated to finding music with the same feeling WIWDWMB gave you.

 In this album comes three new singles: “Follow Along,” “Oh Man” and “In A Box” – two of which have a music video to accompany them. The videos are best described as fun. You can tell the band had a good time making it, and that joy is bound to rub off on you.

“In A Box” is the single without a video, but it doesn’t need one. The song lyrics talk of someone unable to live their life to the fullest. With lines like “Preserving the body without any purpose” and “If I’m not around it won’t matter if I’m wrong,” they argue that if it turned out that chasing purpose despite danger was the wrong thing to do, it won’t matter as life is short and they’ll die anyway. So rather than sit in a box chewing their nails off (a metaphor for playing life safe), they are going to try. The music itself is lovely. The bass lays down a hard groove with a steady guitar in one ear and a lyrical guitar in the other. The song makes fantastic use of silence particularly at the end. After building up with vocals cords best described as heavenly, everything cuts out except the acoustic and the vocals. It ends with the acoustic denying you resolution by not finishing the cadence.

WIWDWMB offers many distinct sounds, such as the use of the steel pedal in “The Upper Hand,” with overarching comfort. From casual listeners to deep thinkers, this album has something for everyone.