EXPECT IT: late May (Rise)

It’s almost surprising to hear Hot Water Music are relatively relaxed as they record their new album—their first since 2004’s The New What Next—at the Blasting Room in Ft. Collins, Colorado, with producer Bill Stevenson (who also recently helmed another legacy band’s new album; read our recent In The Studio piece with the Bouncing Souls for more on that). All of the whispers and reservations from outside detractors—it’s HWM’s first album in eight years, they’re on Rise Records and not Epitaph or No Idea, their best days are long behind them—haven’t penetrated the cushioned walls of the famed studio, according to guitarist/vocalist Chris Wollard.

“Here we are,” he says, calling from a laundromat a half-block away from the studio. “It’s been eight years, and we feel almost tighter than ever, playing-wise. If we really thought about it, we could try to play what everyone expects us to—or what everybody wants us to—and there hasn’t been any of that. The whole time it’s been, ‘Let’s do what we wanna do, let’s write the songs we wanna write, let’s not think about it too much.’”