Athens has been losing its free spaces for years. The squats and collectives that once hosted punk shows for nothing are mostly gone, the small venues that remain charge enough to make playing a financial calculation, and bands work around it. The Nuclear Nuns, a three-piece who self-released their debut LP “R.O.A.C.H.” on July 4, 2025, came up inside that shrinking infrastructure. They cut the vinyls themselves and put the record out for free.
The band’s read on the city is direct. “Greece for many years now has become a place of survival, and especially our generation,” they say, “so we put out an album about survival in Athens, but in a more post-apocalyptic aesthetic.” That post-apocalyptic angle is the whole concept of the band, not decoration. They call what they play “Space Hardcore Punk” — hardcore punk with space rock elements pulled in, fitting the sci-fi look the trio runs with.
The Nuclear Nuns are Zealot Sonam (guitar, backing vocals), Prioress Marie-o (drums, backing vocals), and Sister Sol (bass, vocals). All three have been in the Greek underground for years; two of them had been inactive for a stretch before this band started. “We decided to form a band to have fun,” they say. The early plan was looser — closer to garage punk — but the songs got faster and harder as they wrote, and the sound clicked once their drummer was in place. “When our drummer joined and started playing all together, then is when we found our sound.”
The influence list reads like a record-collection cross-section. They’re metalheads playing punk, and they don’t pretend otherwise. Turbonegro, Monster Magnet, the Ramones, Bad Brains, 80s and 90s hardcore punk, thrash, crossover — and underneath that, everything from Acid Bath to At The Gates to Black Sabbath’s Ozzy era. The Fallout video game series sits in there too, which lines up with the post-apocalyptic streak running through “R.O.A.C.H.”
The record was tracked across three Athens studios — Baumstrasse, Few Studios, and SCA Studio — in spring 2025. The band did pre-production themselves, with their guitarist Manolis Paraskevas handling that side of it, and brought in producer Thodoris Zefkilis for the actual sessions.
They wanted the live feeling on tape, and Zefkilis is the producer they trusted to get it — they call him “a notable producer in the scene.” From there, the album went to Brad Boatright at Audiosiege in Portland for mastering. The artwork is by Vangelis Makris of Paradice Tattoo, a tattooer and friend of the band. The intro speech on “…Riot” comes from English Teacher Rov, with sound design on “…Riot” and “Apostolnik” handled by Paraskevas.
The decision to put it out themselves was about control. “We had a very specific vision as a band, since we put our hearts on this album,” the trio say. Cutting the vinyls in-house and releasing the record free meant the vision stayed with them — no labels in the chain, no compromises on the shape of it. They describe the album as “a vision that is now hand-held.”
On the wider Greek scene, the band’s read is mixed.
The free-space situation has thinned out badly — squats and collectives that used to be the backbone of DIY shows aren’t there in the numbers they used to be, and the small venues that exist often charge enough that it’s a problem for bands. The Nuclear Nuns deal with that by playing whatever they can, however they can, and supporting the rest of the community in return. But the scene itself, in their reading, is in a strong moment.
“Greek punk scene the last 4-5 years is reborn with alot of shows all around Greece DIY or not, with release of new material, and crowd following and overcrowding the spaces.” Most bands sing in Greek. The styles cover most subgenres of punk. Asked who’s worth knowing right now, they list Nothing Thrives, Chain Cult, Frenzee, The Klammers, Tiffany, Krotalias, and the Overjoyed — with the caveat that there are too many to name even if they tried.
Special thanks on “R.O.A.C.H.” run long: family and friends, Thodoris Zefkilis, their brother Foum and Plankton, English Teacher Rov, manager Falegolas, Babis “Newton” Mavrides, George “Hippie” Ape, Vangelis Makris, Alex HGoS, Nick the Drum Scum, Few Studios, Sadhus the Smoking Community, and “to all the Children of Atom.”
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