Hotline TNT’s debut album, “Nineteen in Love”, arrived in 2021, initially as one long YouTube video whose description read: “Cancel your Spotify subscription.” Will Anderson carries that DIY ethos onto its its follow-up, “Cartwheel” he plays and sings almost every note on the LP, which was recorded in two sessions – one with Ian Teeple, and one with Aron Kobayashi Ritch. In combining his knack for pop hooks with surging guitars and subtle production tricks, Hotline TNT feels akin to the recent wave of bands putting a modern twist on shoegaze, but rather than drowning in a wash of noise, “Cartwheel” sounds as relentlessly dizzying as it is warm, blurry yet cathartic, stacking up distorted riffs and emotion in the hope – or even just the possibility – that love will triumph in the end. “There’s a lot in this song/ That’s not in my diary,” Anderson sings on ‘History Channel’, and one way or another, it makes itself known.
The Fat Angel Sings 