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At first, the guitars in Hotline TNT’s music appear distorted sufficient to make you assume your model new audio system are busted past restore. They crash down like a frothy wave that’s greater and meaner than you anticipated, leaving you flailing within the undertow. However when you change into acclimated to band chief Will Anderson’s engulfing squall of sound, you quickly understand that each factor within the whooshing combine is, in some way, totally pristine—as clear as a songbird in the course of a cemetery on a crisp autumn morning.
Earlier this month, Anderson is perched at a picnic desk close to the Ridgewood Reservoir, a little-known freshwater oasis near the Brooklyn neighborhood the place he lives together with his Chihuahua, Josh. At 6-foot-5, with closely-cropped hair that’s dyed down the center—one half black and the opposite half white, like Dennis Rodman by means of Cruella de Vil—he’s laborious to overlook. An avid sports activities fan, he’s wearing an identical monochrome White Sox jersey. Typically speaking with individuals who favor to speak by way of barrages of guitars generally is a problem, however Anderson is a straightforward conversationalist. He tends to reply questions through lengthy tangents that, miraculously, all the time handle to circle again to the topic at hand.
He’s direct when describing the central themes of Hotline TNT’s forthcoming second album, Cartwheel: “It’s about breaking hearts and being heartbroken.” Although he cites Drake as a songwriting affect, the emotional core of his music manifests most vividly in his outsized guitar riffs, which he typically performs with a physicality that leaves YouTube commenters involved for the durability of his instrument (and his physique). Amid one of many album’s many dizzying peaks, he immediately nods to this nonverbal catharsis: “There’s lots on this tune/That’s not in my diary.”
Even when the phrases and guitars are stretched-out and smeared round, Hotline TNT’s music is speedy—shoegaze spiked with hooks that call to mind power-pop heroes Teenage Fanclub and even early Foo Fighters. “I attempt to write from a pop perspective however utilizing a non-standard guitar tuning, a shoegaze trick,” he explains. “There’s no loopy results chain or pedal board. I believe the songs ought to shine by way of it doesn’t matter what tools is laying round.” The group’s stay setup is equally easy, with three guitarists taking part in the identical chords on the identical time, with the distortion turned to its very highest setting. Anderson is blunt on this level, too: “It’s principally simply imagined to sound large.”
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