“If you die when no one’s watching / was it even worth your time?”
That biting line is central to “High Wire”, the opening track on the debut record from Chicago’s KAPUT (out April 25). It sets an anxious, urgent tone—a cutting take on celebrity and media culture, with Nadia Garofalo’s sneering warning, “Caution is boring / We came for blood,” backed by a jagged, bass-heavy post-punk instrumental from Brian Fox and drummer M. Sord. It’s an ominous start that feels like the soundtrack for a slick dystopian nightmare like The Substance or Strange Days.
The nine songs on I are gritty and confrontational, with a raw, almost claustrophobic energy. Garofalo1 uses repetition and stark imagery in her delivery to sound like she’s clawing at the edges of the socially acceptable, ready to burn it all down.
Take “Runner” for example: “You’ll run till you’re dead” is a brutal jab at the grind of hustle culture, while “Ghosts keep coming / Keep running / I should start charging rent” lands as a darkly funny take on being haunted by past failures in an endless cycle of exhaustion. It’s a stark picture of someone running on fumes, unable to escape her own head. That raw introspection runs through the whole record.
There’s a clear narrative arc on I. After the mounting pressure of the first three tracks, standout “Teal” arrives like a fever dream, stepping back from chaos with swirling, hypnotic keyboards, skittering drums and vocal effects that evoke a midnight drive in a downpour. What starts out as a break from the intensity quickly dials it up with a sense of impending doom before kicking into the second act with the pounding “Sucker”:
I is a record that keeps you on edge, balancing defiance and defeat with a post-punk snarl—never comforting, always confronting, but with a thread of resilience that shines through the darkest moments. Nadia Garofalo’s lyrics paint a gritty, existential picture of struggle and emotional exhaustion.
“Hush” brings back the (relative) calmness to close the record on a note of faint hope among a swelling synth bed:
Time will always leave you
With something to hold on to
It’s not always what you need
But you’ll survive the ride
I is a blistering, bruising record – a grim and relentless take on modern culture, and a brilliant soundtrack to our present-day dystopia.
You can order the LP (that comes with a cool lyric zine) from KAPUT’s Bandcamp.
Further Reading
The Backstory: KAPUT shares some of the influences behind this record
New Noise article about Nadia’s cats
- also of recent fave Heavy Feelings
