Hot Water Music - The New What Next

  by Benjamin Howarth

published: 16 / 8 / 2004

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Review

Somewhere towards the side of your favourite record store sits the hardcore/emo/punk section. You stroll into the store desperately trying to remember what the name of that record that got that glowing review in your favourite indie music magazine, heading straight for the New Release (Indie) section. The shop is pretty empty. Hey, it's still early and it’s a weekday so most people are at work. It figures. The kid behind the counter puts a record on. You can’t find the record your searching for. A manic voice comes out of the speakers, screaming as if his life depended on it. “It’s in your head, it’s in your head, Filler…” Hey, Minor Threat! You owned that record too, back in the day and spent ages telling people how it was more brutal, honest and uncompromising than any school of '77 punk band. Nowadays you don’t listen to hardcore, you’ve ‘outgrown’ it, and besides ever since ‘emo’ was in the NME it’s just not that trendy anymore. But you can’t find anything in the indie section. Jesus you have all the good ones already and for some reason you skulk your way over to the generally ignored hardcore/emo/punk section. There’s Out Of Step, and there’s Group Sex, and (ooh...) Milo Goes To College and Damaged and This Is Boston, Not LA. Wow, you’d forgotten how much you liked all this stuff. You’ll probably dig them out when you get home. Then you find this band called Hot Water Music. They have loads of CDs out, most of them on a label you’ve never heard of, but this one, 'The New What Next' is on Epitaph. Isn’t that the crappy label that used to have the Offspring? But they’re cool now, the last Tom Waits albums (the two that came out on the same day, which might even be the best Tom Waits albums) were on Epitaph. weren’t they? Curiosity pricked, you buy the record. Impulse buys are always fun. The guy behind the counter nods, “Cool record, man!” He never says that when you buy stuff you read about in Careless Talk. Is this a good sign or bad? Two days later you have a really, really sore neck. You just can’t stop nodding along to this amazing Hot Water Music record. One track, in particular, is so tuneful and bouncy you just can’t stop listening to it. It’s called ‘Ebb And Flow’ and it’s incredible, when you aren’t listening to it you are humming it. Having said that, the next song is nearly as good. It’s not as catchy but if anything it has more punch and you might even like it more. That hardcore revival you thought about never happened. This record has all the brute strength and rocking out of those old hardcore classics, but it also has great tunes and sounds fresh and modern, and, to be honest, it is all you’ve listened to in days. A week later, and you’ve bought some more Hot Water Music albums. The early stuff is really loud, fast and sounds passionate but you don’t like it half as much as this new album. 'The New What Next' has more variety, and the quality of the songs holds up right through its running time. Admittedly, their best songs are on their last album, 'Caution', and their most adventurous are on the one before that, 'A Flight And A Crash', but for consistency and variety this is their best album by a mile. By now, some of the more understated tracks at the end of the album have edged out the faster, poppier 'Ebb And Flow' as your favourites, and you’ve really started to notice how the drums and bass shift tempo and change texture like the best jazz records in your collection. It’s really weird to hear these conventional, if enjoyable, guitar lines mixing with such a unique rhythm section. The next time you go to the record store you head straight for hardcore/emo/punk. “Hey, this is on No Idea. That’s Hot Water Music’s old label. I wonder what it sounds like?”

Track Listing:-

1 Poison
2 The End Of The Line
3 All Heads Down
4 My Little Monkey Wrench
5 Under Every Thing
6 There Are Already Roses
7 Keep It Together
8 The Ebb And Flow
9 Bottomless Seas
10 Ink And Lead
11 This Early Grave
12 Giver

Label Links:-

http://epitaph.com/
https://www.facebook.com/epitaphrecord
http://epitaphrecords.tumblr.com/
http://www.kingsroadmerch.com/epitaph-
https://twitter.com/epitaphrecords
https://www.youtube.com/epitaph