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The first I’d heard of Hot Milk was in early 2022, attending my first gig post-COVID, where the Manchester band were supporting softcore-emo heartthrobs Pale Waves along their springtime UK tour. When they took to the stage, in outfits that KISS would have been proud of and covered in ink and leather, I thought it was only natural that they’d been brought along with Heather Baron Gracie’s posse.
That idea changed almost instantly when they started playing. The noise they produced was palpable, the sound such a far cry from the headline act that it left me wondering why they were supporting Pale Waves rather than Black Midi. What surprised me even more was the fact that members of the audience around me knew their lyrics, losing their inhibitions and treating the nine or ten song set like it was exactly what they’d forked over their hard earned cash for.
With unbelievable haste, I searched for them on Spotify and made a queue of their songs for further ear damage after the gig had finished. While not every tune was a hit for me, I saw the vision. No-holds-barred, unfiltered and powerful music with lyrics so gothic and angsty they’d put any other punk or emo band to shame.
Now with an EP out since August last year, and the first studio album on the horizon, this person whose opinion you should definitely value is going to tell you how much they think everyone shouldn’t just be having hot milk in their coffees, but also in their speakers.
Comprised of dual fronts Han Mee and Jim Shaw alongside Tom Paton and Harry “Dolla” Deller, Hot Milk hail from Manchester, UK and have been pumping out some of the rawest lyrics combined with nasty riffs since 2019. Their premier song to this day remains that year’s Candy Coated Lie$, which is a must listen if you ever deliberately see the quartet live. That single on its own encapsulates what the band are about, heavy, synchronised guitar choruses between verses laden with the band's signature no-one-understands-me, and again, angsty (don’t forget how angsty they are) lyrics.
From there, their discography gets harder and harder with every subsequent project. 2021 EP I JUST WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I’M DEAD is enough to give the average listener an aneurysm if played too loud, as is the same for 2022’s The King and Queen of Gasoline, which showcases, for me, the best (or at least the most emo) lyrical writing the band has done yet.
“IS THERE A SECRET TO SAYING GOODBYE? IT JUST GETS HARDER EVERY TIME. YOU HAD NO HEART SO YOU STOLE MINE.”
Seeing Hot Milk live is a privilege I’ve managed twice already, catching their special ‘England’s Screaming’ show at away venue KOKO, Camden, before the band returned for the home fixture at Manchester’s O2 Ritz, a sold out show. They bring an unreal energy with them to the stage, especially when they are the headline. Their motive and aims with their music are simple: provide their fans with a megaphone for their rage, and a pass to let loose in their presence. The noise and power around their concerts is already something to behold, their fans clearly show them so much love.
The band have also found themselves frequently venturing transatlantic to the Americas, bringing the chaos to festivals in the likes of Argentina and Chile. They even have enough of a US audience to get basements across the fifty states bouncing into the night. This all between homeland tours and festivals on a yearly basis, the steady and inevitable rise of the band has been building up for some time now.
Looking forward to their album’s release later this year, A Call To The Void promises to amplify everything the band has done well tenfold, if the example set by the two leading singles is anything to go off. HORROR SHOW and PARTY ON MY DEATHBED are intense, beautifully laced with agony and thrilling. It has the potential to be the best album you never heard this year, so you might want to tune in to the band’s frequency while headline tickets are still less than twenty pounds.
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