Buffalo’s Alpha Hopper has been navigating their own chaotic sonic space for over a decade, merging no wave, noise rock, art-punk, and hardcore into something both unpredictable and cohesive. Their fourth LP, Let Heaven and Nature Sing II, arrives March 21, 2025, via Swimming Faith Records.
The new single, “No Breakfast,” out February 28, sets the tone for the album’s unfiltered energy and fragmented storytelling.
Vocalist Irene describes the lyrical content as a mix of personal fascinations and vivid imagery: “Many of the lyrics in this record are characteristics or scenarios that are alluring to me—the pull and power of an electric personality, the romanticism of someone rushing to their lover in time of need, the enticing idea of getting lost in a metaphorical abyss to lose your demons, or confront them. I also wanted my garden to have a cameo because it was looking great in the snow, so there’s a song about my garden.”
Alpha Hopper’s approach to lyrics reflects the band’s broader ethos—intuitive, layered, and raw, with meaning that fluctuates between the surreal and the concrete.
Guitarist Ryan McMullen explains that despite the band’s sporadic activity over the years, there has always been a shared creative vision that pulls them back together:
“We’ve been doing this band for over a decade now, very much on our own terms and at our own pace. At times it’s been a back-burner pet project, but we’re all great friends involved in each other’s lives and we have consistently found our way back to working on this shared vision. Alpha Hopper has always been about meeting with no preconception of what we should sound like, just exploring things as an organic stew of each member’s very different contributions and tastes and saying yes to every dumb idea. In that way, we’ve found our way naturally to a unique sonic space that we all love. The creative process has always been very fun and free, and I’m always surprised in the end how things turn out.”
This album marks a significant shift in the band’s structure, introducing bassist Sean into what was previously a bass-free lineup: “This album is also our first with Sean playing bass—previously all our output has been as a four-piece sans bass (or John and myself secretly tracking bass parts on the recordings). Sean came on board first for live shows playing this newest material in its early stages, but added a lot to the development of the songs in what became their final form.”
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The album’s artwork follows the same instinct-driven process as the music. McMullen details how the visual direction took shape: “Much like the sound of the band, we tried to pull together some different visual influences here to create a new, collaborative visual language for the record. We wanted it to be a bit more organic and a bit messier than the usual design space we’ve been in. I was feeling really inspired by a lot of hand-done, cut-paper collage, irreverently ‘anti-computer’ album covers of the 90s (bands like The Fall / Pavement / Sonic Youth, etc), and John has been making these really crazy maximal, visually dense digital collages, mostly in a single color or black and white, which has a really fun punk-rock feel.”
“So we sort of landed somewhere in the middle by mashing together a ton of different imagery related to biology, the natural world, bones, cells, creatures, the cosmos, primitive astrology, etc., into a big crazy collage. The simple color scheme of yellow and green seemed to tie it all together in a big yin-yang since it’s all trying to explore that duality of ‘heaven and nature,’ and I was thinking a lot about organic life and sunlight/stars.”
Guitarist John Toohill, who also runs Swimming Faith Records, puts the band’s trajectory into perspective and reflects on Buffalo’s DIY punk scene: “Alpha Hopper has always drifted through time and space at its own strange and difficult-to-distinguish pace. Much like the music, I don’t know why it works, but it does. Most bands are lucky to pull one album together, and this will be our fourth LP. I’m releasing it on my own label Swimming Faith Records, which began as an umbrella for the various Buffalo bands I’m involved in (Science Man, Brute Spring, Ismatic Guru, Besta Quadrada, etc.) but has recently expanded into releasing music for other outsiders like Big Clown and Buffalo’s newest Razorface. I can’t say I really know what I’m doing, but it became pretty clear to me that nobody truly does. So why not?”
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Buffalo’s punk and hardcore scenes have been revitalized in the post-lockdown years, with a new wave of energy fueling a diverse underground community: “Buffalo’s punk scene rules right now. It was like after COVID lockdown passed, all the old heads were re-energized and a ton of younger kids appeared, ready to try anything. These newer bands are less concerned about mixing punk and hardcore subgenres, and even if I don’t always love it, I think it’s awesome and makes for a more interesting scene. Shows have been super well attended, and bands actually wanna come here.”
“You got lots of people booking gigs, making zines, putting up posters, running hype pages, taking pictures, shooting video. Stuff I would’ve sold my soul to had happened here just a few years prior. Biff running Feral Kid Records, Tetryon Tapes, and True Outsiders screen printing. Violent Way and Spaced are blowing up, but their members all are still very connected on a local level. They care about Buffalo. Lucas and Adria, from Razorface, are in a ton of bands and have been booking these sick guerrilla shows under bridges and shit that draw insane crowds. Lots of people are coming together and putting in the work to make our rusty old warehouse of a city a real destination for fucked up underground music. I love it.”
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Let Heaven and Nature Sing II continues Alpha Hopper’s decade-long commitment to noise punk rock chaos and collective experimentation. With a new bassist, an unstructured approach to songwriting, and a scene that’s thriving in unexpected ways, the band is moving forward without a blueprint—just instinct, volume, and momentum. Hop on!
