Renato Treves, known for his work with I Like Allie, returns with a new, grittier punk project called NOPE. The band’s second single, Aurora on Pál, premieres today ahead of the full-length album Done Grieving, out July 4 via Rad Girlfriend Records (US), Engineer Records (UK), and I Buy Records (EU). The track is a melodic yet aggressive homage to enduring friendships, formative memories, and the stubborn persistence of punk in adulthood.
“This song was maybe the hardest song to finish,” Renato explains. “But the fact that it took every single member of the band’s input to close out the structure was a testament to how much we were in synch while arranging the record.” The initial seed came from bassist Melo, who brought in a chord progression and verse idea with a feel that hovered between old-school punk and the darker tones of bands like Alkaline Trio or Jawbreaker.
Guitarist Masu built on that with riffs that leaned further into the song’s emotional undertow, but the band hit a wall when trying to figure out the chorus.
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Renato took the unfinished track home to work on the next section. “The result was a melodic chord progression that the rest of the band liked but I thought was just ok,” he says. “Fortunately, our fantastic drummer Dani laid down some sick beats making the chorus fun and aggressive, and Melo then had the idea to go directly into a new section instead of another verse. This made the song tighter and always super fun to play.” Their friend Ale Mobsound, who recorded and mixed the record, called it one of his favorites.
Lyrically, the track unfolds around a memory. “Last year, I was celebrating my birthday at a bar with a few friends and my buddy Ame, who always comes up with the most entertaining questions at parties, asked us all what the title of each person’s autobiography would be,” Renato recalls. “Now, I didn’t even get to the title, but while trying to figure out some event that had such an impact on me that I would end up referencing it in my autobiography, I was reminded of a night I got lost in the outskirts of Milan on my way to see my best friend’s old band at Aurora, a club that is now closed.”
It wasn’t an extraordinary night, but the memory stuck—the kind that resonates louder as years pass. “That trip was so much fun and adventurous,” he says. The flashback also triggered thoughts of The Pál Street Boys, a book that’s echoed in the song’s title. “It’s rare to feel such intensity now,” he adds. “And it’s also rare to have friends that share the same interests, laugh at the same jokes or even remember the same events.”
Aurora on Pál reflects a mature kind of punk nostalgia—not as a yearning for youth, but as a commitment to remain honest about the things that formed you. “Even in my weirdness of being almost 40 and still living, loving and breathing punk rock and going to shows, [my friends] never cease to somehow understand me,” Renato says. “With these friends I am not ashamed of telling them about a tiny youth center where our small scene put on shows… and I feel understood by them when I confide that I’m sad because one of my favorite bands ever is breaking up.”
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NOPE was born out of a need for something faster, rawer, and more direct. Masu, the guitarist, started the project in 2022 after sensing that his previous band Breakmatt Fastgyver lacked drive despite their talent. “My initial plan was to do something more aggressive and faster than BMFG but with a hint of melancholy,” Masu shares. “The band I had in mind at the time was probably Dear Landlord, even if I knew that once you start playing music with other musicians, each with their own influences and creativity, things will take their own direction.”
Renato echoes that impulse. “I also wanted to do something more aggressive than my other band, I Like Allie. I was looking for something more in the vein of Western Addiction or the Hope Conspiracy,” he says. “Masu talked to me about the idea of this band back at a NOFX show in 2022 and I was all in.” With Melo, formerly of Low Derive, on bass and Dani from Machete on drums, the lineup was set. “I called three persons which share my musical tastes and of which I knew I would appreciate their creativity,” Masu concludes. “And now three years later here we are with a full-length album in hand.”
That album, Done Grieving, is a blend of uptempo hardcore punk, orgcore, and traces of emo, anchored by lyrics that dig into the scars of experience with clarity instead of catharsis. The songs aren’t about overcoming trauma, but rather owning it. “The songs are about not just facing but embracing your demons, the broken ghosts, and accepting them as a part of yourself, a body of experiences—good or bad—that makes up who you are and without whom you would probably be a different person,” the band says.
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The record is being released through three labels—familiar partners I Buy Records and Engineer Records, and for the first time, Rad Girlfriend Records. “We are especially excited to have Rad Girlfriend Records helping out since it’s the first time for all of us in the band to be working with them and it’s owned by Josh Goldman, the guitarist of one of our favorite bands, The Dopamines,” they note.
Following the album release, NOPE will join The Dopamines on a European tour in July, hitting dates in Switzerland and Germany before Punk Rock Raduno. The schedule includes:
THU 10/07 @ Planetspade, Bern (CH)
FRI 11/07 @ Zentral Café, Nuremberg (D)
SAT 12/07 @ Hafenklang, Hamburg (D)
SUN 13/07 @ Nilles Saarbrooklyn, Saarbrücken (D)
Festival appearances are set for early September, with more announcements to come.
