The New What Next

Hot Water Music

explicit

Released on 29-01-2004 by Epitaph
Main artists: Hot Water Music
Genre: Alternative en Indie

Available in

16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo

Unlimited Streaming

Listen to this album in high quality now on our apps

Start my trial period and start listening to this album

Enjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription

Digital Download

Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.

New What Next's "Keep It Together" sounds like vintage Afghan Whigs, and maybe that's all you need to know about Hot Water Music's third Epitaph effort. The vets from the FLA have added a further postscript to their post-hardcore rumble, veering into a melodic yet slightly jaded maturity resembling that of Gentlemen-era Whigs. The Alkaline Trio's catchy, punky fatalism is another touchstone for what New What Next offers; Hot Water Music also provides a few satisfying holdovers from their early-2000s output. (The stinging double-time clap of "This Early Grave," for example.) But in the melodic meantime, "Under Every Thing" and "All Heads Down" back up "Together" with tense and cynical barbed wire meditations. Distant guitar sustain wrangles around a prickly ride cymbal as Chris Wollard and Chuck Ragan harmonize on the latter's lyrical venom. "All I ask is how we carry on/Tricked and blind, raped and robbed"; "...In the end, you're on your own" -- are they referring to government dirty tricks, or a more personally cynical world view? The latter seems truer given HWM's somewhat trying existence, band fragmentation and underappreciation being two big issues. "Poison"'s latent Fugazi-isms are softened by echoing Brian McTernan production and plaintive lead vocals, "End of the Line" is a rawer, seasoned-rocker version of the rager being written by every junior varsity Warped Tour hopeful, and "My Little Monkey Wrench" is as touching a love letter as the underground has in 2004. Veterans always endure adversity at some point; the pros put it back into their music, and Hot Water Music certainly has. What's come next is more controlled and sobering, and shows signs of the lives they've lived around the hard core.

© Johnny Loftus /TiVo

More info

The New What Next

Hot Water Music

You are currently listening to samples.

Listen to over 100 million songs with an unlimited streaming plan.

Listen to this playlist and more than 100 million songs with our unlimited streaming plans.

From 13,50€/month

Poison