There’s arguably never been a more diverse era in the history of rock music than the one we’re living in now. For evidence supporting this statement, listeners needn’t look any further than the new music video for Hot Shot Kixxx’s single “Tadpoles,” currently available everywhere indie music is sold and streamed. Bursting at the seams with a combination of jazz, funk, alternative rock and stoner metal influences, “Tadpoles” is a sonic kaleidoscope of crushing weight and eccentric elements every place we listen. Truth be told, this is a hard track to put down once you pick it up, regardless of whether or not you’re a hardcore audiophile.
The percussion in “Tadpoles” grabbed me right out of the gate with its whirlpool effect. As we approach the chorus in the song, it kicks the muscularity up a notch and pressurizes the melodies from the guitar and bass into a single strand of harmonious white noise. We’re given nowhere to run as the walls come crashing in around us, the overdrive drowning us in a decadent guitar masculinity I didn’t know existed anymore. This is a chest-pounder if I’ve ever heard one before, and it’s dropping at a moment when we need it more than ever.
Lyrically speaking, there are a lot of ways to interpret what “Tadpoles” is actually about, but I don’t see this as a symptom of unfocused songwriting. On the contrary, I don’t know that verses were ever meant to be the main focal point for Hot Shot Kixxx in this song. They’re coming at us with so many different components from beginning to end here, and as far as the enigmatic nature of their words is concerned, it only contributes to the overall mystique of the music in general.
I just recently got into the music of Hot Shot Kixxx after checking out their new video and its parent album, Devils at It Again, and I think they’re onto something really special right now. Rock’s greatest icons have never been the type to play by the rules, and in this regard, Hot Shot Kixxx are no different than the legends that came before them. What makes their story particularly unique is the age in which they’re starting this journey to stardom. They’ve got more resources at their fingertips that previous generations did, and in the music video for “Tadpoles,” they’re putting them to use with beautiful, almost surgical-like precision.