Review: Hotline TNT — Raspberry Moon

Hotline TNT
Raspberry Moon
Third Man Records
Street: 06.20.2025
Hotline TNT = Ride + Swervedriver + Ringo Deathstarr

On their new album Raspberry Moon, Hotline TNT explodes with a pop rock/shoegaze wall of sound, providing relentless guitar bliss and enough hooks to catch a thousand fish. Every track starts with a hook, builds to a better one and — at the last minute — reels the listener in like a cutthroat trout yanked out of a lake.

The current lineup of the band consists of Will Anderson (vocals, guitars), Lucky Hunter (guitars), Haylen Trammel (bass) and Mike Ralston (drums). Nobody here takes a moment off; nobody phones anything in. Raspberry Moon is a collaboration. It’s the first album written by the entire band. It has all the tricks: toe-tapping the Scuzz Box and fuzz petals and unleashing machine-gun-fast drumming that never lets up. Raspberry Moon is beautifully delicious and fast and furious at the same time. Every track is like sugar-crusted, multi-colored sprinkles scattered across scoops of vanilla ice cream. Every track is a banger like a firecracker on the 4th of July.

“Was I wrong / Or did you sing my song?  / You hummed along / But you’re already gone.” Anderson sings on the opening track. “Ashley / Turn off the TV / Late fees / Run by the family / All along / You’d rather be all alone / Dragging on / Your bank account overdrawn / Bite my tongue / With words that stung.” The track sounds like the brilliant Girlfriend-era Matthew Sweet with a little Lush Spooky atmosphere thrown in.

“Julie’s War” is the nail-on-the-head standout track: “Mark the score / Swap out the tiles / I won’t make you change your style / Na na na na nah/ Na na na na nah.” The track rattles the cages of what a rock song should be: something contagious, heavy and self-aware of a space that fuses down and ignites.

Another standout track (the album has many) is “Dance The Night Away,” A vibe-friendly fuzzy summer jam. “Move me in double time / I’m on the line / Heartbreak my valentine / Your feet on mine,” Anderson sings. The track is what fresh strawberries would sound like if plugged into an amp. “I wanna say / A hundred times a day / I love your face / When you sway / You could be in all the plays / Off Broadway,” he continues. One of the final tracks, “Lawnmower,” starts with birds singing and the sound of sprinklers, like the opening scene of the movie Caddyshack: “Things get slower / Get back to town / Start the lawnmower / Set me down.”

Get out the pressed polo shirts, khaki shorts, Top-Siders, blue and white lawn chairs and cocktails under sun hats. Hotline TNT is like Nantucket, and listening to their new album Raspberry Moon is like summering wherever you are sitting. “Changed the oil / And the headlights / I missed the turnoff,” Anderson sings longingly on the final track “Where U Been.”  “But you’re right / In the end / We’re still friends / Tide me over / Till we meet again,” he continues. Enjoy this record before summer is gone. —Russ Holsten

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