Cartwheel

by Will Anderson, Hotline TNT

Overview

Centered around songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Will Anderson, Hotline TNT officiate the marriage of shoegaze and rust-belt indie rock on their second album, Cartwheel. While the band have clearly studied the slushy guitar swooning of My Bloody Valentine, the sad-hearted hookiness of the Replacements or Teenage Fanclub, and the dour slowgaze aching of Red House Painters at their most intense or Slowdive at their most awake, these incongruent reference points become something new when combined. Where Hotline TNT's 2021 debut Nineteen in Love was already exploring this concoction of sounds, the upgraded production of Cartwheel offers a more immediate impact, one where none of the details are lost in the waves of top-volume distortion. Opening track "Protocol" hits all of the marks straightaway, with layers of acoustic guitars and burning fuzz tones bleeding into blown-out drums and even more guitars, but somehow still leaving space for distinctive vocal melodies and a sense of pop dynamics even amid the overpowering flood of noise. Songs like "History Channel" and "Son in Law" are muscular blasts of tightly constructed songwriting pushed to the brink of shattering, while relatively subdued tracks like "Out of Town" and "Stump" tap into the melancholy character of Let It Be-era Replacements and simply turn everything up. As much as Hotline TNT are informed by classic shoegaze ("Maxine" sounds like it could be a Loveless outtake and "Spot Me 100" evokes the same vaporous highway mirages as Swervedriver before breaking into a confusing drum'n'bass bridge), their maxed-out production choices have a lot in common with contemporaries like Chastity or LVL UP. Cartwheel's sampler pack of destroyed guitar tones, powerful songwriting, and wafts of nostalgia for multiple eras of slowcore and shoegaze all contribute to its high replay value and overall captivating sound. The album reshuffles a deck of familiar reference points, but it still deals a hand that's engaging and holds a bothered beauty of its own. ~ Fred Thomas

Product Details

Release Date:	11/03/2023
Label:	Third Man Records
UPC:	0810074423397
Rank:	24510

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Hotline TNT   Primary Artist
Will Anderson   Primary Artist
Drew Auscherman   Drums
Allegra Weingarten   Vocals (Background)
Ian Teeple   Keyboards,Vocals (Background)
DJ Big Poison   Keyboards,Electronics

Technical Credits

Warren Defever   Mastering
Jacob Daneman   Publicity
Will Anderson   Composer
Andrew Ellis   Booking
Rusty Sutton   Management
Drew Auscherman   Engineer
Paul McGivern   Booking
Aron Kobayashi-Ritch   Engineer
Alex Farrar   Mixing
Jaycee Rockhold   Publicity
Ian Teeple   Engineer
DJ Big Poison   Engineer
Libby Webster   Management
James Parrish   Publicity
Kathy Garcia   Photography
Gabe Sunshine   Booking