For most of its existence, shoegaze promised a glimpse into an alternate plane of existence, be it the womb, the afterlife, or the unconscious. You know, “dreamlike,” “heavenly,” “ethereal”—any assured transcendence from this mortal coil. Simple words melt into suggestive, non-verbal cues. The typical hierarchy of rock band instruments dissolves, guitars, bass and drums erupt into a utopian wave of sound. The right effects bank can turn that piece of wood you used to hit the 'Wonderwall' into a jet engine or a swarm of comets. And although shoegaze has repeatedly been reinvigorated by merging with digicore, black metal, emo and even alt-country, perhaps the most significant change for the genre in the last decade has been the acceptance of life on life's most miserable terms, which now emerges from the cramped quarters and their overworked laptops are dented and broken. As Will Anderson, the mid-30s mastermind behind Hotline TNT's intoxicating second LP, wheel wheel, where the everyday frustration of an average man explodes into a Without love for the lover.
Although Anderson made his name in cosmopolitan Vancouver and Brooklyn, Wheel wheel lays bare his roots as a quintessential Midwestern indie rocker, born in Wisconsin and born out of a non-musical passage in Minneapolis. A lot from Wheel wheel adheres to it Copper blue standard redlining power-pop, which impresses equally with sticky, looping melodies and throbbing volumes. But when Hotline TNT hits the barrel and hits the gas on “Out of Town,” Anderson drops a winking “little girl” on the front lines and channels his inner Paul Westerberg. “We had to betray Bob Mold's guidance one of these days and see how the other half lives,” he joked in a statement. For Hotline TNT, these Twin Cities indie rock icons aren't just role models, they're the commandments: Be tough but skeptical, passionate but never pretentious.
The Twin/Tone influence on Wheel wheel is obvious, as is his spirituality, highlighting the Midwestern tendency to manifest modesty as self-deprecation and/or self-sabotage. At the beginning of the decade, Anderson made a name for himself that was not SEO friendly with the project Weed. Hotline TNT also made it difficult for themselves, holding back their debut Nineteen in love from streaming and trying to build momentum as a live act during the pandemic. It cannot be a coincidence that the Wheel wheel The cover imagines a bootleg Charlie Brown T-shirt, because Anderson spends most of the album breaking his heart out in 10 words or less: “After the fall/Pretend it's all my fault,” “Better lie/Unsatisfied/Maybe next year .” Lead single “I Thought You'd Change” is the most hopeful song Wheel wheel and, for that reason, also the saddest. since it stinks so many times, why wait for anyone to change?
