Hot Water Music – Shake Up The Shadows 12” EP (Epitaph Records)

Gainsville’s finest are back with another great release called Shake Up The Shadows which has been published by well-known Epitaph Records. This material includes five tracks which are much more into the sound of their previous album Light It Up than their older melancholic style we all used to love, but after all, every band needs to slightly change the direction of the sound here and there. It’s not a drastic change, but missing of those melodies oftenly played by Chris Wollard creates confusion between listeners who already expected similar sound these guys used to play on No Division, A Flight And A Crash or Caution. By Any Means is the opening track and it gives such a nice overlook at brand new Hot Water Music material. It’s a calmy tune more focused on greatly produced rhythm section than on guitars which are mostly filling the gaps in sound at choruses. Shake Up The Shadows comes up next and there’s no wonder why this particular track carries the name of the entire EP. This tune possesses great melodic structures, filled with incredible bass lines and great vocals performed by Chuck Ragan. It seems that this EP is more focused on bass lines than other instruments, and Denatured is a perfect example of my conclusion. Rebellion Story is coming up next and this one has been posted on all social services as an announcement for an upcoming release, so I am glad this one is the weakest track of the whole EP. Somehow it didn’t work out for me because of that classic punk rock melody at the beginning which has previously been played by tons of bands. At least, it possesses good anthemic chorus which is quite good, so the track is not totally bad. Afar And Away is the closing tune of Shake Up The Shadows EP and it’s possibly one of my favorite ones off this record. Hot Water Music have that special skill down in their sleeves and they simply know how to end up their releases and keep the listeners happy. That’s the case with this particular 12”. Cover artwork is one of the highlights of this material and you’ll probably buy this one just because of the looks of this fine piece of plastic. Shake Up The Shadows is up for a pre-order at Hot Water Music Kingsroad Merch page.