By Joe Reardon, Staff Writer

Emo band Hot Mulligan released their newest album, “The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still,” and they knocked it out of the park.

This summer I was looking forward to a lot of albums, but many were disappointments. “Ricochet” by Rise Against was mediocre and “Motel du Cap” by Good Charlotte was not really my thing. “Adventure Club” by Laura Jane Grace was actually pretty good; however, it was accompanied by accusations of Grace abusing her wife, which killed any hype I had for the album.

I was ready to admit that it was a bad summer for music, but Hot Mulligan changed everything with “The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still.” 

I had never even heard of Hot Mulligan until June of this year. A friend of mine put the group on my radar, and I decided to check out the lead single for the album, “And a Big Load.” While I didn’t love the song on my first listen, with subsequent listens, I fell deeply in love with it. 

Before I knew it, the release of “The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still” became the number one thing I was looking forward to in August, and I was not disappointed.

At its core, “The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still” is an emo record and Hot Mulligan embraces that identity. The hallmarks of the genre are all here: emotionally direct lyrics, guitars that veer between jangly melodies and walls of distortion and a vocal delivery that values honesty over polish.

This isn’t just a throwback to the mid-2000s wave of emo. Hot Mulligan blends the genre’s confessional roots with the speed and bite of modern pop-punk, creating something that feels urgent and current rather than nostalgic.

My favorite parts of this album are the performances of vocalists Nathan “Tades” Sanville and Chris Freeman. Both of them have a raw, straining quality to their voices that feels constantly on the edge of breaking. If I had to make a distinction between the two of them, I would say Freeman has more of the distinct pop-punk whine made famous by people like Tom Delonge when compared to Sanville. 

I prefer Sanville’s vocals, but they are both phenomenal. I also enjoy their style of scream singing. It turns already sharp lyrics into something even more visceral and unforgettable.

My personal favorite track on the album is “Bon Jonah.” It’s a very good song that revels in its contradictions. It feels messy and desperate, yet at the same time it’s strangely beautiful. Sanville’s shaky, emotional delivery collides with Freeman’s harmonies to create a back-and-forth that feels less like singing and more like spiraling thoughts set to music. 

The lyrics do not pull punches. Depression, guilt and the fear of dragging loved ones into personal chaos sit front and center. The band’s instrumentals on the track are also spectacular. They do what a lot of my favorite bands do. It’s aggressive and chaotic, but they still keep it under control. Other standout tracks are “And a Big Load” and “Monica Lewinskibidi.”

In a summer where so many releases left me disappointed, “The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still” reminded me why I fell in love with music in the first place: the rush of finding a band that makes you feel seen, the thrill of hearing songs that cut straight to the bone alongside the joy of watching a genre you care about evolve in real time. 

Hot Mulligan took chaos and vulnerability and distilled them into a record that feels both timeless and urgent. I would recommend this album to anyone who has even a passing interest in emo or other punk rock-adjacent genres. It’s not for everyone, but it has become a personal favorite of mine.