Hotline TNT

One Liner: Wall-of-guitars, shoegaze-adjacent, but really tuneful and great
Wikipedia Genre: shoegaze, alternative rock, noise pop
Home: NYC

Poster Position: Third Quarter - Line 17
Day: Saturday
Weekend One Only.

Thoughts:  Oh, this is good.  I was judging the cover of the book and expecting some explosive punk or something, but instead it is a sort of shoe-gazey rock and roll.  Makes me think of that Teenage Bandwagon album from like 30 years ago.  Which I really liked.  And lookie there, Wikipedia also calls them shoegaze.  Also says this style is characterized by frontman Will Anderson's wall-of-sound layering of distorted guitars.  I can hear that, but this is also very tuneful and catchy in a way that I don't necessarily associate with the shoegaze I hear on the Sunday morning radio program.  He claims that Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine, was a big influence.  I don't know that album.

Anderson was apparently previously part of a number of small indie rock bands I have never heard of, like Happy Diving, Weed, and Crazy Bugs.  He was feeling burned out at one point, while pursuing a masters in education, and considered quitting music.  Instead, he formed this band, where he would be the sole constant member and a rotating group of other members.  he apparently vowed to never explain the meaning of the name.  Which is lame.  Two albums - the first was 2021's Nineteen in Love.  Anderson somewhat foolishly released the album as one long YouTube video where you could not select individual tracks, as a statement against streaming services and their damage to the album form.  But, shockingly, the album didn't do too well.  I just tried to find it and it was not apparent after 8 seconds of hunting.  Oh well.  

After that, as he was touring with other bands, Jack White's Third Man Records came calling and asking to sign him to the label.  After hearing from other bands that he would retain a lot of creative freedom, he went for it.  2023's Cartwheel is the next disc that came out (but they are supposedly preparing to release a new one this summer).  Both Paste and Pitchfork gave it favorable reviews.

Stream count is pretty low, despite how much I like this stuff.  Only two tracks with more than a million, and both are on that 2023 disc.  "I Thought You'd Change" is the top one with 1.3 million streams.

Sure, that is a lot of guitars, but when I think of a "wall of noise" it is not that tuneful.  Kind of a Bob Mould vibe in there too.  The video makes me laugh too, those two goofy shitheads bouncing around while everyone else wishes they'd bugger off.

For what it's worth, I also tried out Weed, and it was pretty cool too.  A little heavier.  One of the new singles, which is their most popular track right now, and so likely will be on the new disc, is even more tuneful.  "Julia's War" has 234k streams as of now.

Yeah, that one jams.  The na-na-na-na bits took me off guard at first, but now I like them.  Does the lead singer sound a little like the They Might Be Giants vocals?  That video made me laugh too.  These dudes are goofballs.  Another new single, "Candle," has even fuzzier guitars, but is likewise catchy.

I'd absolutely check it out.