Will Anderson places his personal spin on classic early-Nineties noise
The seemingly-halcyon ‘90s are sounding higher than ever in 2025 — Fugazi-fathered hardcore, Liz Phair feminist pop plainspeak, and within the in a position fingers of Hotline TNT, steaming slabs of guitar noise, Dinosaur Jr. through Teenage Fanclub circa “Every little thing Flows” buoyed by oceanic waves of Cocteau Twins modulations. It’s sufficient to make you miss the primary Bush administration.
Will Anderson — born in 1989, the yr Bush was sworn in — was however a tiny hoodrat arising in Minnesota’s Twin Cities then, however he caught the sonic vibe. And he’s received that lowkey wistful Midwestern factor in his music, with a profound tunefulness: his people raised him on harmony-rich Jayhawks LPs, and he listened exhausting to Hüsker Dü‘s post-hardcore albums. Now a 21st century boy in Brooklyn, Anderson concocted Hotline as a one-man-show initially, with rotating collaborators pulling off random pop-up generator exhibits. Now, evidently, dude’s let his guard down and pledged to a band — which might be good for him. Us too, from the sound of Raspberry Moon, the crew’s in-bloom debut with the decided rock farmers of Third Man Data, which builds on Hotline’s glorious 2023 album, Cartwheel.
“I’ll take a good friend/I’ll take a driving lesson,” he declares on the hovering “Letter to Heaven,” with drolly heartbreaking earnestness, able to hit the highway. “I’d make a wager we will match within the van/ I believe we’d make it in/ I’d make a joke and hope that it lands.” The lyrics can lean elliptical. “Julia’s Struggle,” the magnificent lead single, peaks with Anderson’s wistful reflections on, I dunno, a poignant Scrabble recreation? (“Mark the rating/ Swap out the tiles/ I gained’t make you modify your model”) The goofy video furthers the teambuilding theme — rock band bootcampers operating relay drills round Massive Muff guitar pedals and doing chin-up reps on large whammy-bars.
However by “Lawnmower,” towards a buzzy backdrop of summer time cicadas, Anderson’s tangled in blue and 12-string acoustic guitar strums, evidently again dwelling the place there are precise lawns to mow, turning inward is less complicated, and grown-up achievements seem smaller within the rearview. With a title nodding maybe to hometown hero Prince, Raspberry Moon is 30 near-perfect minutes of shoegaze with eyes peeking up on the horizon. “Within the zone/ Locked cellphone/Soiled tone/In my headphones,” Anderson rhymes blissfully close to the top — a comfy place to be however, I wager he’d concede, even higher with pals.
