Hot Water Music are turning 30 this year, and they’ve got big plans to celebrate. They’re going on an anniversary tour with a ton of great openers — including Quicksand, Modern Life Is War, Off With Their Heads, Tim Barry (of AVAIL), and The Ergs! — and they’ve just announced a new star-studded album, Vows, due May 10 via Equal Vision. It features guest appearances from Turnstile‘s Brendan Yates and Daniel Fang, Thrice, the Interrupters, Dallas Green of Alexisonfire and City and Colour, and Popeye of Farside.
Hot Water Music haven’t released any of the songs with guests yet, but they did release two singles from the album, “Menace” and “Burn Forever.” The former is sung by Chuck Ragan, who says, “In this day and age, it’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day frustrations. What isn’t easy all the time is recognizing our ability to choose our mental state. We own the power to slow down enough to be present in our anger, realizing the paths away from hatred and preparing ourselves for the next time we cross ways with menace.” Chris Wollard sings “Burn Forever,” and he says it’s a song “about processing grief. Allowing it to happen, and also about the things we learn to help us through it.”
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About the album overall, the band add, “The theme that kept coming up while working on this record was growth — how writing a song, recording an album, or being in a band is like planting a seed and helping it grow. We think a lot of that had to do with looking back and realizing that over 30 years, we’ve managed to make something special that we all really love. […] We hope this album feels like a celebration of our history and future to everyone that hears it. That is definitely what it is and how it feels to us.”
Vows was produced by longtime collaborator Brian McTernan, who helmed the band’s classic early 2000s albums Caution and The New What Next, and “Menace” and “Burn Forever” are cut from the same cloth that made those albums so special. Listen below.
Vows tracklist
1. “Menace”
2. “Searching For Light”
3. “Burn Forever”
4. “After The Impossible” (feat. Dallas Green)
5. “Remnants” (feat. Daniel Fang and Brendan Yates)
6. “Chewing On Broken Glass”
7. “Fences” (feat. Thrice)
8. “Side Of The Road”
9. “Wildfire” (feat. Popeye Vogelsang)
10. “Bury Us All”
11. “Touch The Sun”
12. “Much Love” (feat. The Interrupters)
Hot Water Music 2024 tour dates
MAY
03 — Cincinnati, OH — Bogart’s *
04 — Columbus, OH — Newport Music Hall *
05 — Detroit, MI — St. Andrews Hall *
07 — Toronto, ON — Danforth Music Hall *
08 — Buffalo, NY — Town Ballroom *
09 — Philadelphia, PA — Underground Arts *
10 — Boston, MA — Royale *
11 — Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount #
12 — Mechanicsburg, PA – Lovedraft’s Brewing Co. *
13 — Washington, DC — The Howard *
14 — Richmond, VA — The National *
15 — Atlanta, GA — The Masquerade (Heaven) *
17 — Dallas, TX — South Side Music Hall *
18 — San Antonio, TX — Paper Tiger *
19 – Austin, TX – Mohawk *
JUNE
13 — Louisville, KY – Mercury Ballroom ^
14 — Cleveland, OH — House of Blues ^
15 — Chicago, IL — Concord Music Hall ^
16 — St. Louis, MO — Delmar Hall ^
17 — Lawrence, KS — Liberty Hall ^
18 — Denver, CO — Ogden Theatre ^
20 — Mesa, AZ — Nile Theater ^
21 — San Diego, CA — House of Blues ^
22 — Santa Ana, CA — Observatory ^
23 — Los Angeles, CA – The Belasco ^
24 — San Francisco, CA — Great American Music Hall ^
25 — Sacramento, CA — Ace of Spades ^
27 — Portland, OR — Revolution Hall ^
28 — Seattle, WA — The Showbox ^
29 — Vancouver, BC — Commodore Ballroom ^
* — with Quicksand, Off With Their Heads
# — with Quicksand, Modern Life Is War, The Ergs
^ — with Quicksand, Tim Barry
