NOPES have premiered a smashing gangster cartoon video for their track ‘Lithium Hop’, taken from the US noise punks’ forthcoming album “Djörk” which is slated for release on January 29.
NOPES comment: “Great sleep isn’t a common thing on tour, so we’ve spent many nights watching everything from ‘Killer Klowns’ to whatever’s on Adult Swim to help keep us sane”, relates vocalist Alex Petralia about ‘Lithium Hop’. “Ironically, Ellen and I also used to do a ‘Weakly Comic’ strip about 10 years ago, and always meant to do something more with animation. We just never had the time to sit down and learn it. We’ve always been big cartoon and animation fans. Since lockdown started back in March of last year, I figured it was finally time. I started teaching myself from videos online, and created GarbageSale Cartoons (ig: @garbagesale4life). I spent the rest of last year working with fellow Bay Area musicians Elyse Schrock (BLUES LAWYER, THE WORLD) and Richard Alex Olsen (VENKMAN, HEAW) to create a ‘Kablam for Adults’ type of shorts show called ‘Flippin in the Dark’. When it came time to do videos for DJÖRK, production options were limited with all the lockdown in CA. After having Dan do our ‘Pocket Square Motherfucker’ video, we decided an animation would be a good idea for a video.”
“This particular song, ‘Lithium Hop’ is pretty wacky and noisily chaotic, so we figured, it would be a good fit for the animated video idea. The ‘Lithium Hop’ music video is a bit of an homage to the wackiness of our favorite Adult Swim stuff (i.e. Superjail, Eric Andre), with some Lovecraftian monsters, and some other fun easter eggs thrown in there. If you look closely enough, you’ll see an animated Nick Logan on there. He’s the guy who was smoking on our front cover for ‘Never Heard of It’, and on the back cover for ‘Fun Limbo’. Still smoking in this cartoon, but not in real life fortunately.”
Angst-fueled punk ‘n’ roll band NOPES return with their third head-butting album “Djörk”, which shows the Bay Area foursome more than ready to bury one of the most disastrous years in recent memory in a cacophony of disaffection and feedback.
Bristling with angular riffs and glass-cutting hooks, “Djörk” is as unapologetically weird as it is offensively loud and noisy. True to their punk roots, NOPES bristle lyrically against work, class divisions, and the gentrifying soullessness of city life as youthful dreams are mercilessly stripped away.
Completed during the band’s pandemic hibernation, “Djörk” offers 13 compact blasts of raw snarl shot through with rock and noise credentials. It calls to mind fellow punk emissaries DRIVE LIKE JEHU and THE BRONX, while still maintaining NOPES’ signature assault on the genre’s boundaries.
