Hot Milk, I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead
Music For Nations
Hot Milk have returned with their most confident release yet, in the form of I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead. The lead single soundtracked their triumphant return to the stage back in June at Download Pilot, and since then they’ve torn up many a stage – and this is the moment that it’s all been building it to. The EP is packed with anthems and peaks, and confirms Hot Milk’s knack for dark pop-punk to a T.
Lead single, opener, title track and undeniable highlight I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead came out at just the right moment – right from the off, it’s Hot Milk’s most raucous track of all time. The heaviness suits them down to the ground, and definitely prompted some of the summer’s most fun mosh-pits, as well as a massive singalong to that soaring chorus. Across the rest of the EP, we don’t quite make it up to that level of intensity again, but Hot Milk have provided a feast of different iterations of their gritty sound. Split Personality is the closest we come to the dizzying whirlwind of an intro, but Hot Milk take it down a more electro-tinged route, amping up the bass and screeching SFX countermelodies: every beat is a new bite.
Alongside emo banger I Think I Hate Myself, Hot Milk are also brandishing their penchant for sharp, infectious pop-punk on Woozy and The Good Life. Vocalists Han Mee and Jim Shaw duet on Woozy, a melancholic tune exploring the fuzzy emptiness of depression with a suitably moody (but cathartic) chorus, but Hot Milk really shine on The Good Life – it could easily have been a single, and is a total microcosm of Hot Milk. Classic, catchy, which a stomping hook and melee of guitar noise to jump along to, somehow nostalgic and formidably forward looking all at once, with the impassioned spoken word of the bridge providing an emotional peak before the final chorus explodes once more.
On I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead, Hot Milk feel like they’re not just sparky newcomers anymore – they’ve firmly established their niche, they’ve rallied their army, and now they’re gearing up to take over. It’s easy to picture these tunes enthralling huge crowds after the kind of pull we saw from Hot Milk this summer, and the EP’s magnitude is certainly ready for it.
I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead is out today.