CardinalGhast

Having now listened to Hot Mulligan's entire discography, it's admittedly refreshing to listen to a Midwest emo album with an earthier sound. However, it seems that at times, Sweet Pill's main draw is also their main detractor. The highlights like the title track, "Red String", and "Cut" all feel both incredibly nostalgic and incredibly modern, with the belting emo vocals of Zayna Youssef feeling more like a privilege than a right and the snappy guitar licks ... read more

Hot Mulligan spares no time in warming us up to the album, starting with the opener "Moving to Bed Bug Island," an intimate song about getting old and watching time slip through your fingers. It then transitions seamlessly into the lead single "And a Big Load", with explosive lyrics about whether to live or die by our own flaws and mistakes, piling up as the years go by, making for one of their best songs to date.

With these two songs alone, it becomes clear what this ... read more

I can't help but feel that *Warmer Weather* is more of a collection of singles than a dedicated project. That's not to say that the three tracks are bad, not by any means, especially when considering this retroactively as a bridge between *WWIW* and *TSABMWIS*. However, comparing this to the ones that came before just makes this one feel less complete. Short EPs are always difficult to judge, but I come back to *Opportunities* more than this one for that reason alone.

Serving as a follow-up to their 2020 release, *Why Would I Watch* finds itself in an interesting position artistically. While Hot Mulligan have never fully deviated from their Midwest emo sound, their LPs up to this point have always had a unique flavor to them, with *Pilot* incorporating song structures more similar to pop music, and *you'll be fine* taking much influence from punk vocals and instrumentation; on their third project, they invoke an emo-shaded pop punk sound with ... read more