Hot Milk - A Call To The Void

For some, it might feel like a long time coming but Hot Milk always knew that when the time came to make their debut album, they had to be ready for it. It will be their loudest statement yet of who they are and what they stand for, an opportunity to show the world what they are made of. Tracks on the debut album walk on a tightrope between the humorous and the serious, brimming with what might be called positive nihilism. They're not so much finding the light in the dark as they are laughing, because if they don't, they'll cry. With A CALL TO THE VOID, Hot Milk are set to launch themselves into the upper echelons of the British rock scene - .Hot Milk have blossomed over the course of three self-produced EPs, this constant stream of releases has meant that the band was never away from the spotlight - or the stages they call home. Their rise kept accelerating, taking them to stadium support slots with Foo Fighters, the main stages of some of the best festivals Globally, an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel in the US to tours with bands like Pale Waves and their own headline sold-out shows to over 50 million streams of the EPs alone. Crucially, however, they were giving themselves space to find themselves as artists. The band recorded the album between Manchester, Los Angeles and Stockholm with the band's very own Jim Shaw at the Producing helm for the majority of the record, much like all previous releases. An element that has become so important to the band and allowing them to control just exactly what they want to be as artists. - .Other tracks of the record like 'Breathing Underwater', is a song, in Jim's words, about "feeling like you're absolutely swamped, drowning in your own self-doubt," which captures Hot Milk, and especially Han, at their lowest ebb. - "I wanted to run away. I felt like diving into the sea and never coming back up". she explains. "I didn't want to feel anymore - it was all too painful to feel. I felt like a failure but I also felt a lot of pressure and I just didn't really know what to do or where to put that." - Creating art from that darkness, however, turned out to be a silver lining. "We got a beautiful song out of it. "That's why art is really important - it allows you to get all those feelings out there." - That mindset also inspired the title choice. A CALL TO THE VOID is the English translation of the French phrase l'appel du vide, referring to the brain's trick of spotting opportunities to die. It's the eerie jolt that is felt when you stand waiting for a train and the thought that you could jump, and end your life in a heartbeat, intrudes in your head. It's that brief moment of being reminded of the fragility of existence. - 'Party On My Deathbed', meanwhile, fizzes with life but is ultimately powered by a sense of reckless abandon. "It's the idea that you only live once, so you might as well live it to your absolute fullest," begins Jim, before Han elaborates on the idea that wanting to party till you die might not just be celebratory but destructive.