Album Reviews

HotLung is a new-ish band out of Santa Cruz, CA, who have just released their debut album, ‘In Spite Of,’ via Sell The Heart Records, Little Rocket Records, and Amplify Music.

Featuring Kelly Dalbeck (Daxma), Joe Clements (Fury 66, The Deathless) and rounded out by Jon Jamieson on guitar and Dustin Roth on drums, HotLung takes cues from the likes of Quicksand and Seaweed to create a sound that is richly layered and constantly careens between heavy, melodic and somewhat icy. Not what I expected going in from a California-based band (is that geographical discrimination?), but it definitely works well for this band. Take opener ‘Never Home,’ which starts off as a driving post-hardcore tune before morphing into something more introspective and then eventually working a heavy dose of sludge into the song’s finale. ‘In Spite Of’ might be a debut album, but HotLung definitely know what they’re doing.