Alpha Hopper – Aloha Hopper (Swimming Faith Records)

Aloha Hopper is a third, brand new album by Alpha Hopper from Buffalo, New York and such a nice follow up to their previous record entitled Last Chance Power Drive. The band is continuing with a lot more energetic, intense, raw approach to a couple of various genres they usually exploit through their music. Alpha Hopper consists of a vocalist Irene Rekhviashvilli, guitar players Ryan McMullen and John Toohill, and a drummer Doug Scheider who share the same enthusiasm for music and their clear intention is to bring back fun on a scene where people are taking everything seriously.  Together, they’re exploring the genres such as experimental rock, noise rock, hardcore punk, punk rock, post-punk, separated to the tiniest atoms and assembled once again in much more abrasive form. Scheider’s interesting drum playing technique consists of tons of innovative rhythms and it’s such a great foundation for guitar shreddings by both McMullen and Toohill who are incorporating a lot of noise rock to intensity of hardcore punk music, but the band is not stopping there. The guitar sound is almost sludgy, with a lot of fuzz and overdrive, depending on the tunes they’re playing and the pleasant studio reverb is slightly covering both guitars. The riffs are simplified, but dueling guitars are playing separated sequences which are giving some weird, but on the other hand, amazing vibe to the overall listening experience. Irene’s vocals can be best described as aggressive, chaotic, atonal and amazing at the same, greatly performed and recorded for the purpose of this recording. It perfectly fits to already chaotic, but well-composed music of Alpha Hopper. This album has been published by Swimming Faith Records and it comes on Coke bottle clear vinyl which has been presented with cool modern cover artwork. The cover art depicts symmetrical photography of palms overlayered in pink, blue and yellow tones. Inlay cover consists of all the necessary info and lyrics on one side and a big monochrome Aloha Hopper logo on the other side. You can grab your copy at both Alpha Hopper or Swimming Faith Records bandcamp pages and enjoy in some sweet chaotic music.