REVIEW: HOT MILK "A CALL TO THE VOID"

If you’re not familiar with the Manchester band Hot Milk, then you better quickly get acquainted. The band is made up of Han Mee and Jim Shaw who share the vocal and guitar responsibilities. They’re set to release their debut full-length on 8/25 entitled “A Call to the Void”, which will surely catapult them up further. The band has a bunch of self-produced EP’s that have kept Hot Milk not only in the spotlight, but on the touring circuit with the likes of a stint on Sad Summer across the US in 2022, a spot on Lollapalooza in Chicago in 2022, and jumping on two dates of the Foo Fighters’ English stadium tour next year.

Their previous EP’s are full of fiery punk music that is in your face and you cannot help but to try and learn the words to scream along and jump around to. Coincidentally, that is exactly what their live show is like, everyone jumping, pitting, and screaming lyrics. The singles “Horror Show”, “Party on My Deathbed”, “Bloodstream”, and “Breathing Underwater” have been so different and are a perfect example of everything Hot Milk does well. 

The album opens with “Welcome to the…” which has this slow crescendo-ing music in the beginning as Jim Shaw and Han Mee come in with lyrics. The repeated, “Am I the darkness?” with a slow fade is a great way to start the album because this, in a lot of ways to me, feels like the thesis of the album. The songs on the album have been described by Han as dark and some of the most personal songs she’s written. 

The second track is “Horror Show”, which was one of my favorites of the singles released because of the immediate in-your-face guitar that picks up at the beginning before Han’s voice jumps in to navigate you through a seemingly introspective song about appearing as a horror show and scaring people off. Han about the song has said,

"To those on the outside of the lives that we lead, we may look odd, scary and different… so what? In their eyes we may be damned, lost, rebellious, and less than. This song accepts that difference, embraces it and shoves it back in their faces…” 

The next song was also a single, titled “Bloodstream”. This song was premiered before it was officially released on Hot Milk’s headlining tour down the east coast, prior to Adjacent Fest in May, and it rips live. The song discusses a person or situation that is as addicting as drugs and cannot seem to be shaken. The song starts as this kind of electronic, dancy song, but as the lyrics get deeper you see how dark it actually is. 

An album track listing is always so interesting how bands organize songs to tell a story and show their diversity of sounds. The fourth track was also a single, entitled “Party on My Deathbed”.

“I’m here to live my life electric”

Lyrics like this just show how you should be squeezing every morsel of joy out of life, and to live however you see fit because we only have so much time before death comes to claim us all.  

Track five is “Alice Cooper’s Pool House'', which Han talked about on the podcast Lead Singer Syndrome with Shane Told. Han talked about how this song was from her watching a lot of those VH1 music documentaries about punk rock and how there were parties after the Sunset Strip at Alice Cooper’s pool house. Musically, the song is so much fun and talks about what Jim and Han think happened at a party and it's just a good dancey track with a lot of guitar riffs, something that is going to be a very fun song live. Also, Alice Cooper is on the track in the form of a voice recording at the end talking about cleaning up his pool house and some dead teenagers from a party. 

From fun and goofy, to a straight up rock banger, next comes “Zoned Out”. I love that there isn’t an intro in this song. It goes right to Han singing and then kicks into the guitars once again. The band says this is their best collection of music, and I have to agree. The songs on this album do show all sides of the band through a whole slew of emotions. The repeating chorus of, “Feeling all alone now everyone has zoned out,” feels like talking about being in a room with people all on their phones and no one is talking, and has zoned out of the room into social media. This could also be interpreted into the isolationism we’ve all felt the last several years in regards to both the lockdown of the world and the withdrawing away from socialization people have done. The synth and drums build so well at the end of this song that if it’s on a live set, it is going to be an all out jam session and dance break. 

“Over Your Dead Body” is an angry banger talking about someone with a God complex. Jim says, “...do us a favor and disappear, you think you walk on water but its piss all over your shoe.” This musicality fits the angry lyrics and whoever Han is mad at clearly comes off as a very awful person. The chorus is not only angry and easy to catch onto to scream, but is catchy as hell, which is also something Hot Milk does incredibly well.

“You said you’d die for me, but I won’t lose sleep over your dead body.”

This might be one of my favorite Hot Milk tracks to date, because it’s heavy in parts, it has a super stompy chorus, and it's so easy to scream to get aggression out. 

From a heavy song to a rhymier song that is the most genre diverse of the album, jumping between almost rap to full screams from Han and Jim, “Migraine” both fits with the synth of the rest of the album, but also stands out as the most different with the shifting genres. Personally, this felt the weakest of the songs on the album, but that's not to say it’s not good.

Track nine, “Breathing Underwater”, was the most recent single from the album and the most heartbreaking. This song is about drowning in self-doubt and needing help from someone to say that you’re on the right path. As the song builds you can hear the chorus getting progressively louder as the cry for help to the outside world grows stronger, that things are not good and you need help getting through the void or darkness you’re in.

“I tried breathing underwater to drown out the doubt. I cracked under the pressure and nearly bled out. Where are you now?”

This song is just so full of emotion and energy, and will definitely fit so well on a setlist near songs like “I Think I Hate Myself”. I cannot wait to scream this song in a room with people. 

“Amphetamine” features Julian Comeau of Loveless, and his voice fits in seamlessly with Han and Jim. The music of this song is kind of ethereal, which totally fits because it talks about being, “dosed with amphetamine and living in paralysis.” The lyricism through this whole album is top tier and catchy. Every line in this song catches your attention but the line of, “Bite my nails I paint with cyanide, because they dose me with amphetamine,” particularly does. To me this talks about inner demons which a lot of this album discusses, and how things like anxiety and depression change your brain to believe things that are not true. 

The album ends with “Forget Me Not”, which I think is a great closer for an album with emotions in every direction. The song talks about remembering someone who has passed on.

“Where you go I can’t follow, gotta let you rest in peace.”

In the context of this song, you could be calling out to the void in hopes that someone who has passed on will hear you. 

CHECK OUT “A CALL TO THE VOID” ON 8/25 AND CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE ALBUM NOW!

TRACK LISTING:

Welcome to the…

Horror Show

Bloodstream

Party On My Deathbed

Alice Cooper’s Pool House

Zoned Out

Over Your Dead Body

Migraine

Breathing Underwater

Amphetamine (Ft. Julian Comeau of Loveless)

Forget Me Not

Photo Credit - Frank Fieber