WOOF Charts the Fever of Young Love on Distempered

WOOF is the Chicago project of Austen Nobles, a one-man operation that took shape in late 2023 after earlier live work under his own name. The name itself is a compressed idea, Wisdom Of One’s Frequencies. Nobles has described the project as a place where meditation and shadow work sit next to a raw, rebellious edge. The music looks at betrayal, trust and personal transformation without trying to clean the feeling first. Singles such as Hunt, Careless and Bedtime Story already sketched that voice. Distempered is the first full statement, five tracks released on 2 October 2026 and already circulating on every major platform.

There is a condition in veterinary medicine called distemper. It is a virus that raises a dog’s temperature, confuses the nervous system and makes ordinary movement feel unsteady. The animal still runs, still tries to orient itself, but the signals between instinct and control arrive scrambled. The cover of Distempered shows a lone dog mid-stride across an empty road at night, grainy, slightly blurred, caught under a purple light leak. It looks like footage that has already begun to degrade. That image is not decoration. It is the nervous system of the record.

Across the eleven minutes the writing stays inside the ordinary, unstable heat of young relationships. Desire keeps pulling people back into the same mistake. Nostalgia turns a past face into a permanent mark. Obsession makes the present person feel like a stand-in. Trust breaks and the only clear decision left is to stop waiting for it to hold. The verses name the setting without fuss: summer air, an open window, a face that will not leave, the moment when two people still believe the night might last. WOOF does not stand outside those feelings and diagnose them. He lets the fever run through the arrangement and the voice. The work reflects the same interest in inner growth that he has spoken about elsewhere: the shadow is not something to hide. It is something the music is willing to look at.

Immortal opens with the shortest, brightest flash. A pulsing bass and dry drums carry the lines “We lit the sky / Just you and me” and “We’re golden ghosts / In the heat of July.” The warmth is real for the length of the verse. Then the last couplet undercuts it: “You feel immortal? / It’s all in your mind.” The guitars stay bright for a few bars after the vocal drops, then the track peels back until only the bass remains. The high was a projection that the body has already started to forget.

Peel changes the temperature. The opening is muffled, almost submerged, matching the image of someone who says “You love to drown / In empty spite.” “Your shadow bleeds / Like a dog bite.” The request that follows is plain: show your soul, drop the doubt, let the cold heart peel. Guitars thicken with reverb and chorus, the rhythm pushes forward, and the voice, still low and measured, opens just enough to sound like someone who has decided the armor is heavier than the risk of being seen. The reassurance lands simply: “And though cold hearts do peel / Know you’ll be alright.” The track does not promise a clean recovery. It only offers the chance that the fever might ease if the person stops fighting the temperature.

Magazine Girl shifts the frame again. Electronic drums and a deep synth bass lock into a steady pulse while brighter synthesizers lift the chorus. The lyric keeps returning to the same fixed image: “Magazine girl / You’re like a tattoo / In a black and white world.” While one hand is holding someone else, the mind is still on the earlier person. “And while I held her hand / I was thinking of you.” The past relationship sits frozen even as it burns: “But we burned in our love / And still yet frozen in truth.” Her eyes stay like rain against the new person’s fire. The production keeps the past and the present in the same room. The mechanical rhythm never lets the nostalgia drift into pure dream. It stays grounded in the awkward fact of divided attention, ending with the quiet plea “Please find you somewhere safe.”

Juliet places the listener back inside the loop. The verses are close and almost spoken, filtered so the distance feels physical. “I need some air in my lungs” and “Still shaken up till I’m numb” sit next to the request “Let’s take a break for a week.” The chorus arrives resigned: “Today / You can be my lover / And make the same mistake.” Bass and dry drums keep the pressure high. When the arrangement briefly clears for the bridge, the voice hangs on “Juliet I / Need some extra / Time to decide if I’ll let you / Take me higher.” The guitars return, the wall builds, and the choice is already made. The track ends with the same layered guitar decay that opened the record, the sound of a decision deferred until it is no longer a decision.

Desire closes the EP by accelerating the exit. Guitars stay wet with reverb and chorus while the drums break into a liquid drum-and-bass pattern. The lyric has already accepted the new desire on the other side: “And when our worlds on fire / Because you have a new desire / Before you turned into a liar / I’ma let it burn.” Hands tied, the narrator falls when trust breaks, the forever he thought he had turning to dust. The bridge drops the rhythm long enough for “Bridges all in flames / All the times i blamed / You for my my mistakes / Burn it down / I’ll walk away” to sit almost alone, then the breakbeat returns and the final chorus lands with the weight of someone who has stopped bargaining. The voice, which spent most of the EP measured and slightly recessed, finally moves with clearer force. The fever has not been cured. It has simply been allowed to finish its work.

The post-punk pulse stays insistent. The guitars open and close the space. The voice stays low and close in the verses and only stretches when the feeling requires it. Immortal shows the mind inventing permanence. Peel asks for the armor to come off. Magazine Girl keeps the old image alive while the body is elsewhere. Juliet measures the cost of staying in the loop. Desire chooses the burn over another round of waiting. By the time the last bass note fades, the dog on the cover has already crossed the road. The fever has run its course. The signal between instinct and control is clear again, at least for the length of these eleven minutes.

The EP sits with listeners who already move between post-punk urgency and more atmospheric, almost dream-pop guitar work. It will make sense to people who keep coldwave and darker indie rock close, and to anyone who treats unstable relationships as material rather than something to resolve quickly. The writing is direct, the production leaves room for the feeling to arrive, and the whole thing stays restless without turning chaotic. It is music for the hour when the night is still warm and the decision to leave has not yet been spoken out loud.

Follow WOOF

Distempered is out now.

Listen: Spotify · SoundCloud

Follow: Instagram · YouTube · Official Site · Facebook · X · TikTok__