Midwest Emowo and Pup Punk on Yes, Maybe, IDK by Muffin Fox
Between stalwart political anthems and tearful ballads of loneliness and love lost, Muffin Fox delivers a beautiful love letter to being true to your heart.
On March 7th, 2025, Muffin Fox returned for her sophomore release Yes, Maybe, IDK following her debut just four months prior. See here for my review of that excellent album.
Muffin, a self-proclaimed inventor of Pup Punk Midwest Emowo, once again proves her depth of understanding of her genre influences but also brings new, fresh sounds, lyrical maturity, and improved production. Where her first release, Lost Inside My Head, introduced us to all-too relatable teenage angst on the verge of adulthood and a sense of enormous frustration with the social and political atmosphere, the new album brings us a new layered, thoughtful approach. Now we hear an adult, struggling with moving away and facing critical change while mourning the loss of youth, still just as angry at the world and lonely.
There's a raw emotional honesty, too. Immediately on the first track Muffin shares with us her problems like a recorded therapy session, holding back nothing in the way of tears and realness. From the get-go Muffin sheds any notion that what you're about to hear is any less than her whole self, and we get the sense this is pure catharsis. I love this record for this level of honesty.
The tone set, what follows feels more confident, more emboldened by the catharsis of the opening track. Muffin's vocals feel so much more alive and charged here than on her first record and this confidence means the production feels much more cohesive, too.
Lyrically, there's a huge focus on gender identity and the reality of Trans rights, which mirrors her own personal struggles and discoveries with identity on other tracks. As with before, Muffin's political exclamations feel poignant, don't dance around the subject matter, and are so fundamentally in line with the spirit of punk. They're also a perfect mirror to the more personal tracks.
"all this searching/it's leaving me empty/the anticipation it's killing me/fucking killing me/I don't know why I am like this/I just want to die half the time/and I just need something to cling to"
This album is rife with new sounds, fresh influences and sonic experimentation. There's some of the most fifth-wave emo tracks Muffin has ever made. On "Of Gods and Kings" we have very compelling emo guitar, even impeccably-placed shouting and screaming. In later tracks "The ghost in my walls wants to suck pp" and "NEO from the matrix was trans actually" audio sampling from popular media, a fifth-wave mainstay, returns as on the first album.
Muffin Fox
We still hear the influence of authentic classic punk acts like Dead Kennedy's and later pop punk stalwarts NoFX on some tracks more distinctly than others, look no further than "Identity Crisis" and "Nazi Furs can suck my Wiener Schnitzel" for this. There's ballads, too, like "Abby" and "Why you cramping my vibe", showcase some of Muffin's best lyrics.
There's newfound sonic experimentation into electronic and synth sounds which makes this album much more diverse. Where Muffin's sound remains firmly rooted in classic punk and pop-punk, this feels like a fresh and welcome direction. This is persistent throughout, but it's best showcased on "Kirt Cocaine and the mystery of the magic crack rock".
Muffin Fox
"Abby" is unlike anything else Muffin Fox has written. On the surface, it's an acoustic ballad about her former family dog and an absolute gut punch into tragedy. The use of lyrical repetition is strongest here and one of the best hooks on the album. But beyond the surface, there's a stronger emotional presence in this song, becoming a sort of vehicle for a theme about the transition into adulthood that permeates the entire album. These lyrics become some of the strongest in Muffin's discography:
"I had to move/and leave you behind/it killed me/but I packed my bags and hugged you goodbye/something felt wrong/I couldn't place it at the time but you knew/you knew/ I should have been there/it should have been my paws in the dirt"
Between stalwart political anthems and tearful ballads of loneliness and love lost, Muffin Fox reminds us to stay honest to our hearts and hold love above all else. Yes, Maybe, IDK is once again a beautiful love letter to punk and remains one of the most beautifully honest and heart-filled works of art I've heard in a long time.
Yes, Maybe, IDK is available now on Bandcamp and streaming platforms.
Muffin Fox
The world is crazy and scary and hectic right. And the people making it that way want us fighting and isolated and alone. So stand up together. You see someone on the ground you pick them tf up. If we're gonna make it through this we have to do it together" - Muffin Fox