HOT MILK - A CALL TO THE VOID
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In music reviews, it’s often said that an album is long-awaited but it seems like for this particular record that is an understatement. The scene has been waiting with bated breath to hear the debut album from Hot Milk for quite some time. They’ve given us three self-produced EPs to date each one more addictive than the last, with a constant stream of releases.
The band want us to know that amongst these releases and other accomplishments they have been “giving themselves space to find themselves as artists.” and with a collection of songs like this it can be argued they have done exactly that! The album was recorded between Manchester, Los Angeles, and Stockholm, with Jim Shaw producing for the majority of the record, as with all previous releases. A key element in the band's ability to be exactly what they want to be.
Subsequently, listeners are presented with something uncompromising and boy does it show. They've barely missed a beat since that came out in early 2019. ‘Awful Ever After’, their debut single, was a stunning piece of s pop-rock that set Hot Milk on such a successful path. Nowadays post pandemic, Hot Milk seem heavier, perhaps so do we all. Thanks to Hot Milk's efforts to establish themselves over the last few years, A Call To The Void has come out to a captivated audience.
The record begins with ‘WELCOME TO THE…’ an intro at a little over one minute. Coming in nice and strong next is the first real song ‘HORROR SHOW’, and the track is anything but that, with its perfect percussion. This song brought in a new era of Hot Milk, one that the band called “bolder, brasher, and more impactful than ever before.”
‘BLOODSTREAM’ is the third and possibly one of the strongest offerings. In spite of its masterful pop-rock exterior, and stadium-filling melodic ambition, what we have here is a desperate love song. Lead singer Han Mee explains the song came to them, instead of being chased down through long hours in a studio and was written “in its entirety in the haunted early hours in Los Angeles. We started it in the early hours just as it was home time... immediately we knew that this song was something different for us yet had come from nowhere. One of them rare moments where the song jumped from the ether and wanted, nay needed to be written”.
One of the weaker songs is up next with ‘PARTY ON MY DEATHBED’, albeit the weakest out of a very high standard of music. The remaining songs hit big one after the other each one a mini masterpiece, until we get to the final track ‘FORGET ME NOT’ complete with synths and Han Mee’s brilliant vocals.
Hot Milk's escalation of excellence has been noticeable in each release so far, and A Call To The Void is the same. Everything comes together wonderfully and almost pops out of the genre boxes they’ve been unceremoniously shoved in up until now. Hot Milk has progressed their way beyond being just another pop-rock band. Whatever you do don’t get in their way as they go full steam ahead onto bigger and better things, rooms and stages!
Cat Wiltshire
★★★★★