Nupping | nupp – ing | noun
DEFINITION
A 10-track record from Baltimore’s sludgy noise act Dope Body. Known for its intense, mucked-up punk rock, Dope Body cranks out some brutal jams on Nupping. It sounds like a call to arms, a reminder that ferocity works in every era, and that there are many, many ways to make screeching and scrawl sound as vital and imaginative as they did when The Monks accidentally stumbled upon feedback in the ’60s.
On Nupping, Dope Body mixes nasty hooks and razor-sharp melodies into the greasy barrage alongside with tropes snatched from throughout pop music’s history books. The power chords that open the album’s epic final tune, “Force Field” suggest AC/DC, if that band’s school-boy uniforms were rattier, and its members slightly crazed from malnourishment. There’s a bit of Motown soul in the lazer- and cowbell-inflected “Mr. Black,” and the drum work on the oft-kilter “Enemy Outta Me” could double as a hip-hop break.
Dope Body works these disparate, interesting pop elements into its sound without too much unintended stumble, and what results is a doozy. Though the band members clearly have some technical chops, on Nupping they’re mostly going for urgency. Surely, it’s for the best: Nupping packs a wallop, and Dope Body’s sheer passion makes the record’s punch that much stronger.
PICTURE
The album artwork for Nupping:
ORIGIN
Dope Body’s debut cassette, Twenty Pound Brick (Watercolor, 2009); the Orphan-Dope Body split album, Self-Titled (Black Tent Press, 2010).
USAGE
“Nupping will definitely be in my top 10 of 2011 list,” said the bookish-looking 40-something who seems to wear the same sweat-stained Jesus Lizard T-shirt every time he’s in public.
OR
jillwave reblogged this from b0mbastic and added:
Nupping is the greatest thing I’ve heard alllllll year! I luv Dope Body.
SYNONYMS
awesome, bad-ass, dynamite, great googly-moogly, gnarly, sweet, the tits, vicious, wicked.
DERIVATIVES
It’s perhaps too soon to tell, but once the kids listen to Nupping, it’ll probably be too hard to count the number of groups ripping off Dope Body’s style.
WHERE TO WITNESS IT
Dope Body performs with Hume, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, and Matt Northrup on May 6 at La Molienda, 3568 14 St. NW