HotWax : Hot Shock
(Marathon)
LP | CD | DL | Blu-Ray
March 205
Buy from Sister Ray
4/5
Hot Shock is of course, hot. A collection of high decibel songs soundtracking the stuff of life…the high and lows, the angst and the escape and crafted into timeless time bomb anthems that prove that despite endless warnings, rock music is anything but dead.
It’s do or die for the long time best new band on the scene, HotWax. Longtime LTW faves since before their debut 2023 ‘Treasure’ single, the Hastings based trio’s explosive live shows have combined incendiary thrills with the tightrope danger of early Nirvana, the inventiveness of post-punk, and the dark thrills of Yeah Yeah Yeahs into their own high-decibel soup and now they have got it onto vinyl.
This stuff is hard to get right, though – many have tried, and many have failed, but HotWax displayed patience as they built up to their album. They have toured hard. Made friends. Kept on listening and honed their band down to an inventive machine that somehow adds a pop to the noise and creates an infernal pop/noise combination.
Exploding out of the ever fertile South coast scene, they seemed to be on the fast track for the first post-rock band to break out in the UK. They took their time and honed down their debut album that makes the big sonic jump that should see them embraced. From the opening, She’s Got A Problem with its shivers of darkness over its grungeadelic chugging swagger to Wanna Be A Doll and its glam tinged anthemic swagger to One More Reason with its bass driven post punk shivers, this is an album that will soundtrack teenage summers and wild gigs of abandon.
Tallulah Sim-Savage commands the mic with her visceral vocals, whilst the rhythm section has the power dynamics of early Nirvana with the cyclical throbbing bass lines of Lola Sam and drummer Alfie Sayer’s powerhouse hammering. It’s not all shouting, though and they bring it down for introspective Pharmacy or the slow oozing In Her Bedroom before allowing it off its leash for an explosive climax.
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- Source: NEWHD MEDIA
