Messed!Up
If Hot Milk’s 2023 debut album A Call To The Void was the band’s high-octane mission statement, the world isn’t ready to meet its fierce, rough-and-ready older sibling.
Roaring into their next era, Hot Milk now proudly present Corporation P.O.P. – an extravagant, uncompromising assessment of the perilous world around us, examined through a sharp British lens that is both witty and universal.
Snapshotting the gloom of the present and unloading very real fears for the future, the sentiment behind Corporation P.O.P. might feel locked inside a time capsule. But fast forward two decades, and time will surely prove why this record carries the hallmarks of something timeless. Since Han and Jim first met inside a bar in Manchester’s Northern Quarter (“Born in Preston, made in Manchester”, as Han neatly sums up) and started the band – which was completed by Tom Paton (bass) and Harry Deller (drums) – Hot Milk’s story so far has already confirmed their status as the city’s unlikely alternative success story. “I wanted to be purposely annoying on this record,” grins Han. “I want posters around Manchester saying ‘The new sound of Manchester: Hot Milk’.”
Previously adopting a heavily digitised approach in Jim’s bedroom, the primary focus this time was on real amps and pure sounds – which is where producers Zach Jones and KJ Strock came in handy.
Gracing the cover of Kerrang! (numerous times) and receiving acclaim from the likes of BBC Radio 1 and Rock Sound, A Call To The Void propelled them into the international arena. Meanwhile, global rock titans are queueing up to book Hot Milk as their openers. Whether it’s stadium shows with Foo Fighters in the UK and Australia, discussing aliens with Tom DeLonge on Blink-182’s stateside run or warming up Limp Bizkit fans on the English seaside, Hot Milk’s bucket list is going to need a few extra pages.
This summer, they’ll open some European shows for Green Day, who Han has seen 55 times – and that’s not including the goodnight kisses she used to blow to her poster of Billie Joe Armstrong. “They [inspired] me to do a politics degree,” she says. “Since day one, I’ve always said that Billie will come to me. He needs to knock on my door and I’ll go, ‘Y’alright?.’ That’s my narrative arc.”
Armed with their primal, larger-than-life live show, Hot Milk’s headline slot on the Kerrang! stage at Slam Dunk Festival was but one more live highlight among a career that is earmarked to be littered with them. Bulldozing their way into the future, they’ve kicked and scratched their way to the forefront of the UK alternative scene. Corporation P.O.P. may yet be their catapult to the summit.
In 2026, they embark on a European tour including three dates in Germany!
DATES
- 7 February at Kantine, Cologne
- 9 February at Hole44, Berlin
- 10 February at Logo, Hamburg
