Cuffed Up - All You Got (2024)

Cuffed Up have a knack for distilling big dreams into sound. Their debut album All You Got is filled with dreams of bigger stages, a more open heart and a more equitable society in short, dreams that are swiftly dismissed as naive. For this Los Angeles three-piece, “anthemic” is not just an apt descriptor of their sound, it’s an ethos. In every swelling chorus, ardent guitar riff and rich cascade of cymbals is a seed of hope that things will take a turn for the better. After all, this band has been to hell and back, whether it’s multiple lineup changes, industry roadblocks or a global pandemic, and they’re used to being written off as starry-eyed.

Lyrically, All You Got is an apt encapsulation of the human experience in 2023, couching biting condemnations of tech billionaires (“Small Fry”) and pointed critiques of internet trolls (“Mock Dance”) next to vignettes of life-affirming romance (“Finer Things,” “Love Is…”) and fervent pep talks to fellow creatives (“Hello, Dear Passion”). It’s an album for the remaining optimists of the cynical doomscrolling era and for the people who are willing to relentlessly chase their dreams no matter how difficult their lives are made by gatekeepers, politicians, real estate speculators and other modern-day supervillains. It’s not defined by a blind ignorance of mounting crises, but rather powered by grueling real-life experiences and the pain-staking reality that the only way out is through.

Formed by vocalist/guitarist Ralph Torrefranca and drummer Joe Liptock in 2018 and joined by vocalist/guitarist Christina Apostolopoulos in 2022, they share a love of stirring rock music, from the urgent tension of the U.K. post-punk revival (particularly Shame, whose first L.A. show inspired Torrefranca to form Cuffed Up) to the tender, ornate compositions of Death Cab for Cutie (a special influence, given Torrefranca and Liptock were in the same DCFC cover band, and Torrefranca and Apostolopoulos were at the same DCFC show in 2008, long before they met). - Lizzie Manno