CuVa Bimö Turn Modern Discontent Into ‘New Western Values’

A big difference exists between being annoyed with the world and being completely fed up with it. Oakland- and San Francisco-based CuVa Bimö make that progression loud and clear on their sophomore album, New Western Values, turning political frustration, personal grievances, social exhaustion, and outright absurdity into ten tracks of restless “post-whatever rock.”

Formed through Craigslist in 2023, CuVa Bimö consists of Pete Vadelnieks, Ricky Cunliffe, Jake Bilich, and Sebastian Beltran-Moeller. Their refusal to settle comfortably into one genre has become part of the appeal. Alternative rock, post-punk, grunge, and shoegaze collide throughout their music, with influences ranging from Sonic Youth and Fugazi to Ride, Dinosaur Jr., Arctic Monkeys, and Oingo Boingo.

Recorded over seven days with Trevor Gabriel of Cactus House Recording/Dark Satellite, New Western Values arrives as an intentional step forward from 2025 debut CB Radio. Where that record documented everyday irritation and a creeping suspicion that civilization might be falling apart, its follow-up sounds considerably less patient.

The title track confronts what the band sees as the normalization of government cruelty in America, while “Charm Offensive” turns its attention toward two-faced behavior within local music scenes. “Sound And Fury” aims at election-cycle rhetoric, and “North American Champ” examines American aggression abroad. Elsewhere, the record gets intensely personal, particularly on the head-injury nightmare “1027 Graysin” and the cathartic finale “Too Much.”

“Malagradecido,” meanwhile, is performed entirely in Spanish as a tribute to Mexican punk and telenovelas. The band hopes that frustration ultimately becomes productive. As they explain, New Western Values is about using the feeling of being “absolutely fed up” as catharsis, then channeling that energy toward improving everyday life and community.

CuVa Bimö isn't offering easy answers. They're documenting what it sounds like when irritation finally reaches its breaking point.

Your debut album captured a sense of everyday annoyance, while New Western Values comes from a place of being genuinely fed up. What happened between those two records that intensified your perspective?

Pete: For me, I became a father, so my free time became a lot more scarce. That meant that some personal relationships became difficult to maintain and, frankly, some people I knew had their heads so far up their own asses that I couldn’t take it anymore.

I was also doomscrolling a lot more while watching my kid, which, thankfully, I’ve quit doing as he got older, but social media was feeding me a narrative that made me fed up with so many people from various walks of life. So, when it came time to write lyrics for these songs, this overall feeling of being “fed up” was very present, so I channeled that into these songs.  Cheaper than therapy, let me tell ya.

Seb: In the thick of it in Oakland, for better or worse, with several car break-ins, tires stolen, a fist fight break-in, the realities of working in public education, it's so easy to dwell on what’s pushing myself and my bandmates, in their own respects, to feeling fed up, burnt out, and disillusioned. In our first album, some of the lyricism was trying to match our audience with general feelings of frustration and abstractions. Now, seeing the coming to fruition of the New Western Values we have been taught in school and life, our newest album’s lyrics are much more straightforward, directly referencing the details, names, and places of our everyday lives, along with the sensationalist terms we hear in the news or read about in our books. 

You describe yourselves as “post-whatever rock,” pulling from post-punk, grunge, shoegaze, alternative rock, and beyond. Has rejecting a specific genre made you more fearless as songwriters?

Pete: Haha, sure! The truth is that we always start with a riff/groove idea and will build songs from there.  It’s always about the idea, not the genre of the idea. When we formed in 2023, we never sat down and said, “We want to be a (blank) band”; we just played to our strengths and whatever ideas fell out of our heads. Sonic Youth is a big influence on me in that they wrote and played whatever felt right to them, not what a “genre” says they should sound like.

Seb: I love geeking out on hyperspecific genres, and paradoxically in doing so, find it hard to pin us down to a particular genre. Every time I find an algorithm assigning me the same type of genre, I honestly try to pivot totally away from that. With that being said, there can be times when we will try to jokingly tap into a certain vibe of one of our favorite artists and incorporate a good amount of our different areas of expertise to create “whatever” our mix is. 

Several songs directly confront American politics and social conditions. How do you write about subjects that are unfolding in real time without allowing the music to become trapped in one particular moment?

Pete: Seb and I are a couple of history nerds, and we bonded over a podcast called “Real Dictators." Spoiler alert: what’s happening in current American politics and social conditions has been occurring over the last few hundred years all over the world, but especially when fascism rises up in a country's political environment.    

Seb: You could say that we’re commenting on the Trump administration, but look at so many post WW2 dictators that popped up during the Cold War, and their rises are interesting. I nerd out on history books for fun and teach what I read, so it's sort of all-consuming, and I really get into my geography, history, religion, and cultural references. Each time I read a new book, I try to take some phrasing, either for lyrics or a title, or concept imagery for artwork. I was really into my Latin American and revolutionary books, but lately I’ve been reading some ancient histories and myths, which always have super cool-sounding terminologies. I also teach in what’s probably the most diverse part of Oakland, so I’m always learning. 

“Malagradecido” is entirely in Spanish and draws inspiration from Mexican punk and telenovelas. Seb, what attracted you to those influences, and how did they reshape the way the band approached that track?

Pete: Seb brought this song into practice, and immediately the 4 of us were drawn to it.

Seb: I started to get super interested in the Mexican, and later generally Hispanic rock scene after studying abroad in Cuernavaca in 2020. I went from some of the classics like Hombres G and Cafe Tacvuba into some more modern post-punk acts like Generación Suicida, Grito Exclamación, Sgt Papers, and Los Cogelones. Rata Negra from Spain, and La Ola que Quería Ser Chau, Buenos Vampiros, and Suárez from Argentina are also some big influences, many of which I have been blessed to have seen here in the Bay Area.

Otherwise, growing up watching Telenovelas at my grandparents’ back home in San Gabriel during the day was a constant background that I never quite understood but also started picking up on, inspiring some of the translations about love, blood, and ingratitude. Watching pro wrestling is also sort of a telenovela I have been invested in for most of my life, which also contributes to some of our lyrical references. 

You’ve said you hope listeners use their frustration as catharsis and then do something positive within their communities. What does turning anger into meaningful action look like to CuVa Bimö?

Pete: I’d like to caution: baby steps here, but more than anything, try to become part of your local community.  If something feels disingenuous, or more bluntly, bullshit, talk to your neighbors about it. More than anything, talk to others in real life. Get out of the house and stop shit-talking about others.  Society is getting weirdly distant from social interaction, and we’re not talking to each other enough in real life. Go out to a show, go to a book reading, visit the library, go to a local restaurant.  It’s easy to become a keyboard warrior when you’re fed up with something, so try to take the extra step to make your local community slightly better.

Seb: My big obvious answer and reminder for myself is to not get so sucked into our surveillance state where we’re constantly judged and judge others. For everyone telling others how to live online: go touch grass and breathe air. Play soccer, read a book, write a dumb song, say gibberish, and more. Anything but IDK, nothing, and doomscrolling; those aren’t answers and can’t change anything. I’m fed up and disillusioned and all that, sure, but I have a pretty good community that helps channel my anger and frustration into something positive and remarkable, whether in my classroom, this band, or at home with my cats. There’s always the list of how I need to be a better person, but what helps that egomaniac mindset is investing in, supporting, and promoting my family, friends, and neighbors immediately around me and just starting there before.