Montreal’s Hot Springs don’t want to be your Facebook friend. They don’t care about what haircut you have. They don’t care about your blog. They simply want to freak you out.
With more and more bands attempting to placate and sedate by mimicking current trends, Hot Springs actually dare to bring something new to the table. Leaving dance punk and current saveurs du jour in the dust, Hot Springs have completely reinvented themselves with their first full length: Volcano. The album dishes out a combo of perfect pop that sinks its fangs in, rock that doesn’t stoop to knuckle draggers, ballads that are fluff free, throws a flurry of psychedelia into the mix (guaranteed to leave marks) and, yes – you can even dance to it. Lead-off single, “Headrush”, holds their contemporaries at arms-length with a hard-rocking seventies vibe, hinting at Heart, with the piss and vinegar of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, still managing to distance themselves from the current crop of bands hogging up the blogosphere, discovering Gang of Four for the first time.
All of the songs hang off the lyrical pearls and inventive vocal workout that come straight from the gut of songstress Giselle Webber. Tracks, like “Tiny Islands”, bring the new-school pscych of Black Mountain to mind, with a dark and brooding epic that pushes way past the pop-esque two and half minute mark. Other songs like “Pink Money” and “Cellophane” hit like a mitt full of nickels, perfectly combining rock muscle with pure-pop song craft, while the more genteel side of the band shears through the most callous hearts on tracks like “Fog and the Horn”, that will have your goose bumps standing at attention. Along with Montreal acts like The Besnard Lakes and Malajube, Hot Springs are among the most exciting bands to spring from the second wave of the Montreal music explosion, with Volcano quickly earmarked as one of the best records of 2007.
The Hot Springs' calling card was their 2005 independently-released pop-laden e.p., Rock Partouze (which translates to “Rock Orgy”), yet the band would go through many changes before putting together the gems that would make up their first full length. Original drummer Karine Lauzon put down her sticks to dedicate herself to motherhood and turned over her chair to long-time Montreal scenester and drummer, Anne Gauthier. She and bassist Frédéric Sauvé clicked immediately, bringing more ballast to their blast, while guitarist Rémy Nadeau-Aubin layered the songs with new flight. This would only be the beginning of their metamorphosis, as Webber began exploring her darker side with compositions that went far beyond the pop lexicon - letting the songs blow up to epic proportions with their trademark pop still in tow, but with far more punch this time around.
Produced by Jonathan Trimble Cummins (Bionic, Tricky Woo) and engineered by The Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek (Wolf Parade, Land of Talk), Hot Springs hunkered down in Lasek’s Breakglass studios, with additional tracking done at The Pines studio, engineered by David Bryant (godspeed! You black Emperor, Jackie O Motherfucker). They set out to make an eclectic record that was as equally light as it is dark, epic as it is concise and diabolical as it is divine. Not an easy task for sure, as most bands these days tend to just ape their singles over a record, but Hot Springs are not exactly your average band. The final tracking and mixing session of the record was completed outside of Montreal in the rural environs of Farnham, Québec in an ex-church/Masonic temple (La Petite Église), under the watchful eye of Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Final Fantasy, The Unicorns).
The album is one thing, but Hot Springs prove that it was hardly just smoke and mirrors and are indeed worth their salt in the live setting. If you take a moment to google their name, you will be treated to a flurry of people frothing at the mouth over their live performance. With no shows similar to another (some sober, some drunk), the common thread is that the band is always able to garner true brilliance, where everything threatens to fall off the tracks before miraculously hugging the guardrail at the last minute. A recent scribe from Exclaim magazine, who witnessed the band at 2007’s NXNE festival in Toronto was moved to write “Easily delivering the festival’s most impact and giving me a new favorite rock act, the band’s consummate showmanship and ferocious energy was unparalleled”. Hot Springs live provoke and poke, while Webber's on-stage persona is out to taste blood. The whirling dervish of Webber completely commands the stage, pouring fire into her words while beating out chords on her guitar as if they had just been caught breaking into her house.
Volcano refuses to just sleep walk through the lackadaisical hit parade or the fickle fashionista underground. The Hot Springs' agenda is simple: they want to deliver what is desperately missing in today’s music industry – they want revolution and they won’t rest until they get it.
HOT SPRINGS: VOLCANO, NOW AVAILABLE ON ITUNES!. or you can order a real copy of the record HERE!
::also! many people have been stoked about the artwork nadia moss did for our record. here is a little treat for said people: a short film she did a little ways back that is designed in a similar style/and-or appearance. it's called *what they ate*. ENJOY!
<span style='font-size:20px; font-weight:bold'>Hey HOT SPRINGS, I just bought you as my PET! <a href='http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=361263053'><span style='font-size:larger;'>Click here</span></a> to find out how much I think you're $$WORTH$$!</span><br/><br/><a href='http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=361263053'><img src='http://static-lb-2.slicezero.com/oyf_prod/images/ffs_money4_myspace.gif' border='0' /></a><br/>
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Hey – just a reminder to listen in FRIDAY afternoon at 4:30-6 pm CST to hear HOT SPRINGS on “This Great White North” an ALL CANADIAN music show from Austin, Texas It’s on www.koop.org 91.7 KOOP-FM
hey team. fuck habs just lost and we don't get to see hot springs on next week. man, whats next....as long as they don't make nachos illegal i'll be ok. have fun on your trip though. please kick mr. jones in ass every night for us.
Check out this weekend’s episode (4/25 – 4/27) of Undiscovered as we’ll be featuring music from Hot Springs and many other great Independent-label artists!
Artists played on Undiscovered are heard in 7 markets! Listen on: KBRE in Merced, California; WOSC in Salisbury, Maryland; WEGW in Wheeling, West Virginia; WHBR in Parkersburg, West Virginia; WAMX in Huntington/Ashland, West Virginia; WAQX in Syracuse, New York; and WTFX in Louisville, Kentucky! Four of our affiliates stream their signal on-line so you can hear the show from anywhere! (links on our website)
Undiscovered- we bring Indie music to broadcast radio!
Hey guys, I'll be in Montreal @ Le Divan Orange on Thursday & Friday night while traveling with Elliott BROOD (playing with USWofM). Stop by and say hello or call my mobile if you're in the area. It'd be nice to see you again even if just for a quick hello.
hey thanks. that makes us feel warm and fuzzy. we totally enjoyed your record a few times on the way o sxsw too. its a good listen start to finish...those are the best ones. i probly woulda gushed a bit more about how i like it but the habs just lost AAAARRRRGGGGHH! ...and i'm still kinda depressed.
We broke up in 1987 and haven't played as a group since. Some of us have worked on Chris D.'s Flesh Eater projects since then. I've discussed a reunion with Chris. He did a short Flesh Eater reunion tour with John Doe, Dave Alvin, DJ Bonebrake and Bill Bateman last year. After I left the band, I toured singing backup with Leonard Cohen a couple times, and have my own music out-very different than this... I heard in your stuff echoes of the kind of edge Divine Horsemen had, and i love it! Please keep me posted and visit my own page. Rock hard. Yours Truly, Julie
