“The cusp of something is the point where it transitions from one state to another, and that’s the place where I feel like I reside in my life,” reflects Jen Bender - singer, guitarist and songwriter for Rochester, NY’s Cusp. “I never feel removed from one stage of my life or fully settled into another, until I look back and realize how many different cusps of life/adulthood I’ve already met and moved past.” That sense of transience, always on the precipice of the parts of your life behind you, looming over whatever the future holds permeates the five songs on Cusp’s debut EP Spill.

“Some of these songs are about specific events/people from my early 20s that have stuck with me. Most of these capture the time of my life right after college, when I was still processing the previous four years and also mentally preparing for the vastness of adulthood,” recalls Bender. Spill musically draws from bands like Pile and Ovlov, flitting between expansive, airy jangle and crushing distortion. Retrospective and introspective, Spill punctures quiet moments of self-observation with realization that propels you forward.

Bender’s bandmates in Cusp are no strangers to similarly jagged, propulsive, anxious music. Joined by members of Rut and Full Body (now Full Body 2) the songs on Spill pull from some of the same sources as those bands, but juxtapose themes of anxiety and helplessness with moments of hopeful determination, and a desire for a better understanding of how people process the world around them. The song’s structures shift on a dime, melodies flirting with pop that never resolve as you’d expect, opting to bend and swerve rather than settle into what’s comfortable.

The title track “Spill” describes an omnipresent feeling of dread that lulls in the background of everyday life. Determined to reimagine this reality, Bender daydreams of a new, better version of themselves despite inhabiting a world that feels continuously confusing. “I’d like to get to know myself under a different circumstance,” Bender sings, longing for an external quiet in order to find space for an unclouded self-understanding before the song explodes, pushing itself to a breaking point.

“Resume” opens with chiming guitar as Bender sings “what is the point of staying the same when everything else is changing its ways?” The song slowly builds, pushing forward only to return to the same motif over and over, occasionally spiking with heavy fuzz, before finally breaking through. “Illusion Controlling” repeats a sort of stop-start phrase, creeping louder and louder, the safety features of a car alerting the driver to the dangers of the road a metaphor for running through life seemingly on autopilot, missing the details until someone reminds you of what’s right next to you.  

Catchy, direct, and heavy at times, Spill is a powerful first offering from a band committed to self-reflection and empathy. Over the course of several months, Cusp recorded the EP across several locations in upstate New York. The tracks were engineered and mixed by drummer Dylan Vaisey and mastered by Scoops Dardaris (Prince Daddy and the Hyena, Diva Sweetly, Undeath).

Spill is out on Dadstache Records on May 7th, 2021.