Album Review: Hot Mulligan - 'The Sound A Body Makes When It's Still'
Fair warning: The Sound A Body Makes When It’s Still, the new record from post-emo trailblazers Hot Mulligan, is probably the most emotionally lacerating album of 2025, to an extent that may surprise even long-time fans. Whether you’ve been following the Michigan five-piece since the Fenton EP days, or you hopped on for Why Would I Watch two years ago, you already know their reputation for leaving it all on the page, as well as on the stage. Tades Sanville’s unflinching, diaristic lyrics are a core part of the band’s appeal, not to mention their song titles.
They have a habit of running with ideas most bands would use as placeholders; I mean, really, who among us would ever expect a song called ‘Monica Lewinskibidi’ to be one of the most gutting songs they’ve penned to date? It’s one of several songs here about the loss of Sanville’s maternal-figure grandmother—and the first sucker punch of a three-part meditation on grief completed by ‘Milam Minute’ and fittingly elegiac closer ‘My Dad Told Me To Write a Nice One For Nana So This Is It’. You usually never know what’s lurking behind these titles. Hell, the title for their new record’s lead single is simply an attention-grabbing bit, though there’s a ‘big load’ of things on Sanville’s mind as usual.
Mental health and chasing stability has been a recurring theme in the band’s lyrics since their 2014 inception, and the fear of falling back into old habits colours much of the record; opener ‘Moving To Bed Bug Island’ seeks to turn a corner that’s just out of reach, a glimmer of hope that comes and goes throughout a sprawling 16-track album that’s got plenty of musical highs to counteract the crushing lyrical lows. The way ‘Bed Bug Island’ stutters to a halt to drop perfectly into ‘And A Big Load’ and drummer Brandon Blakely’s scene-setting opening fill is indicative of how strong the band’s sequencing game is, with a lot of the record stitched together in a way that’s immersive, cinematic and reflective of Hot Mulligan being a band who shine brightest on album-length statements.
It’s an intense lyric sheet, but aside from their emotional signature and the fact they’re once again working with Brett Romnes behind the boards, it’s all change on the fourth album from the #1 Hot New Band. In a genre where it’s sometimes too easy to lean on musical tropes and motifs, Hot Mulligan know what defines them and make an effort to subvert expectations wherever they can, as ‘Island In The Sun’ ropes in Cory Castro of Free Throw for the first credited feature in the band’s catalogue, on a scream-along about getting smashed to forget your problems that still manages to pack in an ethereal, strangely cathartic bridge. The album’s peppered with references to drink-fuelled hedonism, with diminishing returns, as ‘one doesn’t work turns to eight on the hotel floor’ and things start to unravel at alarming speed on ‘Carbon Monoxide Hotel’ amid a barrage of consequences.
With a tight thematic focus that revolves around unfiltered vulnerability set to music, Sanville deploys the band as a vehicle for his deepest fears and anxieties, consumed by paranoia on ‘Cream Of Wheat Of Feet Naw Cream Of (Feat)’, by turns taking himself to task and doubling down on ‘Bon Jonah’, before we’re out the other side of quasi-instrumental ‘This Makes Me Yucky’ and things reach a breaking point, It’s a gripping narrative, replete with sneaky musical and lyrical callbacks. Loss, grief, the feeling that your instability never changes and is ironically the most stable thing about you—and more than anything, the sensation of being overwhelmed by your own existence. The album’s title can be read as meditative or lonely, a liberating or frightening realisation of the self.
In less experienced hands, the wealth of ideas explored throughout The Sound… could be mismanaged and result in a record unsure of its sonic identity. Luckily, there are no half-measures anywhere on this thing. It might be a rough ride at times, but it’s vibrant enough you may not even realise the weight of the words you’re singing along to. The band’s fourth album is a tear-soaked document of what it’s like to live in defiance of the odds; sometimes overwhelming, always compelling, resolutely Hot Mulligan. They’ve come up over the past decade or so, supporting scene luminaries and honing their craft just enough with each release to stay on a path of constant evolution, and now they’re ready to take the crown for themselves. Emotionally lacerating, honest, thrilling and absolutely vital.
Words by Gareth O'Malley
