Nihiloceros is a nice and noisy band from New York. Think raucous punk pop with a heavy dose of grunge goodness. Inspired by late 80’s and early 90’s punk rock and alternative rock, the band draws its influences from artists such as The Replacements, Jawbreaker, Husker Du, The Violent Femmes, Fugazi, and Placebo.

Their 2021 record Self Destroy addressed a heavy topic during a pretty heavy time, digging head on into the futility and insignificance of our very existence amid a global pandemic. The idea that no matter how great your life or impact, that one day everything you’ve ever done or ever were will be completely erased. It was a real bummer.

Dark Ice Balloons instead explores the places between the worlds of living and the dead. Just opening up the possibilities within our consciousness of different heavens and hells and all the weird places in between somehow felt a whole lot cozier than everything being simply blinked out of existence.

Musically we all tried to push things a little further than have in the past. It’s always important to us to keep the sound heavy without losing pop sensibility. So we got a little weirder with some of the arrangements and melodies, and we thought it would be kind of fun to have zero guitar solos on this record.

Much of “Dark Ice Balloons” is really just our desperate attempt to imagine what might lie beyond the expiration date we’ve each been given. It’s self-preservation by agnosticism at its finest.

Mike Borchardt (guitar/vocals) and Alex Hoffman (bass/vocals) crossed paths over a decade ago playing in different bands in Chicago and Alaska. After they both ended up in Brooklyn, NY, the pair struck up a collaborative creative friendship. After the recent departure of their dear friend and longtime drummer, newest member and NYC punk stalwart, Glenn Gentzke, now rounds out the trio bringing with him a fresh dynamism behind the kit. With a shared penchant for loud guitars, cool rhythms, and sad pop melodies, they now write music together about the imminent evolutionary unraveling of the human condition and the absurdity of the end of the world. They also play a lot of shows.