HotWax have been bubbling up under the radar since the release of their 2023 debut EP, ‘A Thousand Times’ and its follow-up, ‘Invite Me, Kindly’ later the same year. 2025 sees the release of their first LP, ‘Hot Shock’, through Marathon Artists.
The tone of ‘Hot Shock’ is alternately formed of a tightly jagged, off-kilter rhythm section discordantly complemented by floating guitars and vocals, and driving, catchy choruses. It’s reminiscent at various times of 2010’s grunge revival bands like Wolf Alice, Japanese Voyeurs, and Milk Teeth, of classic ‘90s alt-rock, and of mid-era Cure post-punk with a touch of mid-noughties indie landfill.
Lead singles ‘She’s Got A Problem’ and ‘I Wanna Be A Doll’ kick the record off. It’s an infectious start, with ‘She’s Got A Problem’ pulsating throughout its short runtime – though still finding time for a dreamy bridge – and ‘I Wanna Be A Doll’ really introducing the album’s tonal recipe, settling into its groove without issue during the verses and a chorus that almost feels laconic despite the energy powering it forward.
‘Strange To Be Here’ feels like the most nineties song on the album, particularly in Tallulah Sim-Savage’s guitars and vocals in the chorus, channeling Shirley Manson and Steve Marker of Garbage fame.
‘Dress Our Love’ and ‘Hard Goodbye’ both do a great job of extending a single, dancing groove through each song, varying tones and intensities around it to form rising choruses and subdued, dark bridges.
It feels as though the band are pushing their foot incrementally harder on the gas pedal for the middle third of the album, which peaks with ‘One More Reason’, a frantic, bass-driven, 190 beats-per-minute exercise in building and sustaining tension.
When we hit ‘In Her Bedroom’, we’re given a moment to breath. The pace seems, deceptively, to slow down – until the calm, almost PJ Harvey-esque verse accelerates hard into a fast, punky chorus, and returns at the end transformed, half-time, doom-like.
‘Lights On’, an acoustic-led slow jam, builds around a sexy little riff that is seared into the first verse, before revealing itself as the chorus hook. Like ‘Strange To Be Here’, it’s a song that oozes nineties cool.
In many ways, ‘Chip My Teeth For You’ works as a complementary song to ‘In Her Bedroom’, with brief, accelerated interruptions tearing into an otherwise relaxed song, never letting us sink too deep into the calmer rhythm.
In fact, it’s only ‘Pharmacy’, the album’s soft, acoustic, strings, and percussion closer that fully embraces a slower, softer side to the HotWax. It feels like an archetypal closer – though not to the detriment of the album or the song.
Some of the bands harsher angles from their previous releases are softened in ‘Hot Shock’, but they haven’t been totally excised. Instead, they come out in the form of controlled explosions that tear briefly through songs, reminding us of a vicious streak simmering under the catchy alt-rock hooks and rhythms. HotWax have focused on creating a tonally consistent artwork, which varies up rhythms and textures to keep us guessing while simultaneously giving us something unified and – crucially – groovy.
WILL BRIGHT