The story of Brooklyn-based four piece Hard Nips is a testament to how small the world can be.

Gooch, Hitomi, and Yoko grew up in Japan and later moved to America. Saki grew up on Long Island. Each of the Nips came to live in New York at different times, from different parts of Japan. “Gooch is from Okinawa so she’s an island girl; Hitomi is from Nagano so she is a mountain girl; Yoko is from Osaka so she is a city girl; [I’m] from Long Island so [I’m] a suburban girl (at heart),” says guitarist Saki.

Singer and keyboardist Yoko ran a Japanese bar/restaurant in Brooklyn where bassist Gooch was a regular customer. The bar conveniently gave the girls a place to meet, unwind, and escape the English speaking world. They quickly formed a cult-member-like bond whose rituals all included drinking a lot of alcohol and uncontrollably running their mouths in some unintelligible language (some say it was Japanese). The wine flowed like Kool-aid and, somehow, they found themselves buying into the idea that they were capable of forming a kick-ass rock band.

At the end of 2009, the girls picked up instruments for the first time and with all the sonic grace of a crop duster crashing into a pet store, they officially declared themselves a band. They played for months with no intention of ever performing live, hanging out and making noise. Then a strange thing happened: somewhere in the collective mind of the band, music was being heard, music that they did not have the ability to play, but very badly wanted to.

Two albums and three EPs later, Hard Nips are back with a brand new album, Master Cat, their first new music since 2017. Master Cat is 8 tracks of high octane party rock, melding the early punk sonics of the Ramones and Blondie with the off-kilter fun of the B-52s. Album opener “Blender X” sets the tone - bouncing between driving bass, guitar and organ punctuated by layered vocal harmonies that ask “You want it twisted? You want it dirty? You want it funky? Are you for real?”

“We collaborated on everything and everyone wrote their own parts but each song started out as a basic form usually from one of us,” explains Saki. “Gooch and I especially bring the initial flavor to the songs by writing the melodies/riffs: Gooch’s style is more groovy and funky with songs like Master Cat, Alternative Dreamland, and Anaconda; my style is more rocking and punk, with Workaholic, Analog Guys and Motto. Yoko and Gooch write the lyrics. Hitomi is a true professional and we can roughly describe what kind of beat we are thinking of and she will find it.”

Songs like the brooding, post-punk inflected “Alternative Dreamland” and the impossibly catchy “Motto” (Japanese for “more”) echo that theme of empowerment, breaking out of the mold and pushing yourself to be what you know you can be. “Master Cat”, the album’s title track tells the story of a sex worker roaming the halls of a hotel and owning it, shouting “Who do you think I am, a secret kitty service?” over a thunderous groove.

Hard Nips carry themselves with the excited swagger of all the leather-jacket-clad rock heroes of the past, wrapped in an effervescent day-glo party package. As Hitomi puts it, “We like something you can dance to but still keep it hardcore.”