Hotline TNT Announce New Album, Raspberry Moon, Out June 20th via Third Man Records
Watch the Video for Lead Single, “Julia’s War”
Hotline TNT by Graham Tolbert
“Will Anderson amplifies everyday heartbreak with towering shoegaze and supersized power-pop anthems that demand to be played loud.” – Pitchfork
Hotline TNT – the New York-based band fronted by Will Anderson – announce their third album Raspberry Moon, out June 20th via Third Man Records and share its lead single, “Julia’s War”. The follow-up to Cartwheel, the band’s “exquisite” (Billboard) 2023 breakthrough, Raspberry Moon is the most sweeping and compelling Hotline TNT album to date and, crucially, the first built by a full band. Funnelled into the album are moments of vulnerability and romance, creating a generationally great statement of youthful wistfulness and very adult growth that also happens to be very charming and sometimes funny.
While in the studio of modern D.I.Y. hero Amos Pitsch (Tenement), Anderson found himself in an unusual position. This time, and for the first time, the quartet that had toured for the last 10 months as Hotline TNT had come with Anderson, somewhat unexpectedly. He had intended to make one more album his way—holing up with a producer and building songs piece by piece, as he’d done for Cartwheel—before making Hotline TNT a full-band affair in the future. But there was no avoiding it. Guitarist Lucky Hunter, bassist Haylen Trammel, and drummer Mike Ralston wanted in. Anderson relented.
In making Raspberry Moon, Anderson confronted a burgeoning if occasionally difficult belief: Hotline TNT was now a band, and this was the band. The benefits are self-evident— it is the most texturally rich and energetically nuanced album Hotline TNT has ever made—from start to middle to finish. Some of these 11 songs deal with the sting of regret, of being left or leaving, as Hotline TNT always has. But this is a record animated by a sense of newness and possibility, of pushing back against the global sense that curtains are closing to make room in your own life for new friends. It is perfect music for looking forward, no matter how fucked the past may feel.
Lead single “Julia’s War” is an anthem of nascent affection where a simple and wordless chorus of “na na na nah” paints a horizon of possibility. The guitars are perfectly warm and sharp, cutting into you but simultaneously pulling you into the song. Of the track, whose title is a hat tip to regional contemporary They Are Gutting A Body of Water’s sprawling imprint, Anderson says: “In a world of half-hearted hooks, and buried-in-the-mix vocals, we had to muster the courage to do what the rest of the shoegaze community could not… We looked out to the stadium and reassured the audience: Our voices, together, will be heard. You’ve never heard a TNT chorus this straightforward – when we stress-tested it during the writing process, the ‘try not to sing along challenge’ came back with a 100% fail rate.”
Of the song’s accompanying video directed by Johnny Frohman, Anderson says: “When it came time to cook up the music video, Johnny Frohman created a Full-Metal-Jacket-style shoegaze bootcamp… It’s not the Marine Corps, it’s Slow Corps. Edy Monica, Dan Licata, Peter Mills Weiss, and an ensemble cast of NYC comedy underworld alts rounded out the platoon and drafted us into a world where we could enlist in a strict regimen of pedalboard assembly and underwater vocal lessons.”
Watch the Video for “Julia’s War”
Musical auteurs have been a feature of rock ’n’ roll since its very early days—folks who could imagine a sound and the path to it, largely alone. Something akin to Moore’s Law has made it easier to become exactly that during the subsequent decades, since studios with solid gear are now as accessible as a bedroom. It is increasingly convenient to be solo. The real work, though, is to abandon the ego and singular devotion to your absolute vision and make something better with the people you trust. Hotline TNT has done exactly that on Raspberry Moon, an album where Will Anderson gives himself space to fall in love with the world around him and sing as much in songs so loaded with hooks you’ll need to choose which ones to hum at any given moment.
Hotline TNT will play a series of headline shows in early May and will then embark on a North American Tour supporting Hippo Campus with stops in Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Austin, Chicago, and more. A full list of dates can be found below.
Raspberry Moon Tracklist
1. Was I Wrong?
2. Transition Lens
3. The Scene
4. Julia’s War
5. Letter to Heaven
6. Break Right
7. If Time Flies
8. Candle
9. Dance the Night Away
10. Lawnmower
11. Where U Been?
Hotline TNT US Tour Dates
Thu. May 1 – Louisville, KY @ Mag Bar
Fri. May 2 – Urbana, IL @ Rose Bowl Tavern
Sat. May 3 – St Louis, MO @ Sinkhole
Sun. May 4 – Columbia, MO @ Rose Music Hall
Tue. May 6 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
Thu. May 8 – Boise, ID @ The Shredder
Fri. May 9 – Sat. May 10 – Portland, OR @ Roseland*
Mon. May 12 – Tue. May 13 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox*
Wed. May 14 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue*
Fri. May 16 – Sacramento, CA @ Channel 24*
Sat. May 17 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl*
Sun. May 18 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren*
Tue. May 20 – San Antonio, TX @ Aztec*
Wed. May 21 – Austin, TX @ Moody Theater*
Thu. May 22 – Dallas, TX @ Bomb Factory*
Sat. May 24 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Jones Assembly*
Sun. May 25 – Bentonville, AR @ The Momentary*
Tue. May 27 – Columbus, OH @ Kemba Live*
Thu. May 29 – Grand Rapids, MI @ GLC Live at 20 Monroe*
Fri. May 30 – Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed*
Sat. May 31 – Minneapolis, MN @ Surly Brewing*
Sun. June 1 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club % (early & late shows)
Tue. June 3 – Buffalo, NY @ Rec Room
* w/ Hippo Campus
% w/ Slow Pulp
Praise for Hotline TNT and Cartwheel
“Huge, loud and enveloping.” – The Guardian Guide’s Albums Of The Year
“Like all of the best shoegazers, New York’s Hotline TNT manage to keep a hint of pop in proceedings, even when they’re shooting for gigantic, looming walls of sound.” – The Standard
“Cartwheel is a gorgeous, warming embrace of defiance.” – 9/10 The Line Of Best Fit
“The New York outfit are spearheading a surge of energy.” – CLASH
“The way this album combines big, bracing distortion and hummable tunes could make any Hüsker Dü fan smile.” — Rolling Stone
“[Cartwheel] is an exhilarating blend of driving indie and alt-rock, power-pop, and shoegaze… Anderson’s deft songwriting [makes] feeling bad sound so good.” — SPIN
“Though many of Cartwheel’s songs are about feeling dejected or heartbroken, there is an overwhelming warmth to [the album]. It’s a powerful, hook-heavy shoegaze experiment that pays off in surprising ways.” — Consequence
“There’s something charmingly scrappy about Hotline TNT’s wistful, bittersweet songs… but they sound like a million bucks.” — Treble
“Cartwheel is a glowing achievement of what shoegaze is capable of.” — Paste
Raspberry Moon artwork