Album Review: hotplug – hotplug

The debut self-titled album from Sacramento, California, indie outfit hotplug is literal garage rock, though not in a way you’d expect.

Comprising Anthony Juarez, Matteo Delucchi, Josh Jenkins, and Alex Alldrin, hotplug wrote, recorded, and produced the album in a garage – you wouldn’t pick up on that at any point, so fluid and polished are its twelve tracks.

It hits its stride right from the deceptively short and melodic semi-intro of Going On, featuring what sounds like a mandolin, that soon cedes the stage to washes of synths. It doesn’t prepare you for the tight harmonies and chunky guitars of the title track, nor the way it and the following number, Get Better, take you back to the days of power pop.

But from those songs, it’s also obvious that hotplug write their own scripts, musically and lyrically. Power pop may be a common strand throughout the album, yet when you get to Ranch 2, its West Coast and New Wave vibes, plus the mixing of relationship and relationship motifs, are a real head-turner. And for a song that details emotional confusion, it’s surprisingly soothing.

Lunar Maria finds the band exploring the spaces between words and music and is probably the most retro-sounding number of the album. It reminded me of a young Joe Jackson, with vocal harmonies reminiscent of a youthful Weezer.

As an album, it left me stumped, but in a pleasant way. I’m usually adept at picking up influences and references within songs, yet with tracks like Cool With What She Does, Over The Moon, and Nine Interlude, you are tantalised by what you hear, as if they trigger a musical memory, but one you can’t quite put your finger on.

Maybe that’s what makes hotplug such a good album: it doesn’t particularly sound like other bands around at the moment, yet it gets you feeling the way you do when you listen to your favourite bands. Feel Good flirts with shoegaze and dream pop; it feels familiar, but does it sound quite like anyone else? No.

The band has spoken about finding it difficult to identify lead tracks as singles. I can understand that, because it’s all killer, no filler, versatile and varied – an album in the truest sense – a body of work that has a wholeness and completeness about it.

The album is out now and is available in digital and CD formats on Bandcamp, and is streaming on Spotify. Follow the band on Instagram for details of other streaming options and news of upcoming live dates and new releases.

Header photo by Avery