REVIEW: Hot Mulligan - 'You'll Be Fine'

Written by Ceci Graham

Have you ever watched a television show, and when it starts to get popular the production seems to get a lot better with each season? Hot Mulligan's second album You’ll Be Fine sounds a lot like this; polished, but somewhat lacking the charm people originally fell in love with. It can not be argued that this is due to a record label change as they’ve been with No Sleep Records since their debut album Pilot; therefore, it seems strange as to why this album feels off. 

You'll Be Fine is the first album they’ve released in two years. During this time they have evolved into a bigger and “brighter” sound. This could merely be due to experience and time, which is something people will appreciate. 

I will be the first person to admit I was scared of new material because of the adoration of their first album Pilot. I wanted so hard to get the same rush of emotions from “*Equip Sunglasses*” as I did with “The Soundtrack to Missing a Slam Dunk”. Not being able to have that connection with this album makes it feel a bit more lackluster than some of their previous work. The polish on this album, while bringing in more fans, appears to be directly correlated with what may be wrong with this album aesthetically, making it seem boring and like every other sad pop-punk experience out there.

Another strange grievance is with track “BCKYRD”. It is the only Hot Mulligan song where the lyrics somewhat match the song title. This was quite a shock upon first listening to it and sadly another example of them dipping into the more average-looking/sounding pop-punk.

However, despite this, nothing will be able to tear fans away from the unique mesmerizing style of Nathan “Tades” Sanville’s vocals, as this was the one thing that stayed consistent on this record. There’s something about his raw vocal delivery on this album or any other Hot Mulligan production that just brings you in. 

As a whole the album is not necessarily bad, it's delivery just comes off as boring, leaving fans to most likely expect more when the band has done such fantastic work in the past. Overall, the album art is something to be admired and fans will appreciate everything that was done to retain a stylistically cohesive work music-wise and production-wise.