Hot Shorts - Hot Shorts

Album Review by Gary Kaill | 17 Nov 2016
Album title: Hot Shorts
Artist: Hot Shorts
Label: Super Smash Hit Records
Release date: 18 Nov

In the barren wastes of the pre-Christmas release schedules: an album that gives the finger to half-assed consumerism and dumb material aspiration. If album lead track My Phone Is a Fucking Piece of Shit didn't make clear the Manchester four piece's arch worldview ('Everything Is Awful') clear, the remainder of this excellent debut leaves little room for doubt.

Hot Shorts features the best song titles in an age (Scared of Fighting; I Think I'm Going To Delete Myself From the Internet; I Don't Want To Do My Job Anymore) and the lyrical savvy to make good on their promise. If the likes of 'At least pretend that you are warm enough' (Carol, Take Your Coat Off) or 'I said his band was shit and you were dumb for liking it' (Just Trollin') appeal on paper, then listen in: Hot Shorts is chock-full of sweet tunes and ersatz anthems. 

A staple of their local live scene for a few years now, Hot Shorts are savvy enough to both debunk and celebrate the tenets of 90s college rock. They know their stuff and, boy, do they know how to craft a song. And while lesser acts would copy and paste or – worse – simply take the piss, here's a record that displays genre fondness while simultaneously giving scene dumbness a (gentle) kick in the balls.

It's not easy to toss this much irony around without coming across like a complete bunch of twats but Hot Shorts manage it with ludicrous ease. Also – critical, this – excellent photo of a sleeping cat on the cover.