On new EP Adventures of E-Wan, Dunedin four-piece Hot Donnas are at their best – crafting spirited, grunge-indebted indie rock that’s as distinctive as it is blistering.
The six-track release, which we’re premiering here at Music Feeds before it arrives tomorrow, swerves between bursts of punchy punk aggression on the likes of opener ‘Two Brains’ and ‘Type A’ and infectious noise-pop, as on slow-burning closer ‘Beach’. It’s coherent, with the band’s idiosyncratic, off-kilter charms anchoring the EP.
Adventures of E-Wan was recorded Radio 1 Studios in Dunedin, and though it’s been complete for some time, its release was delayed by (*gestures vaguely at 2020*).
“Even though time has passed, we still feel like this is our most defining release to date,” explains the band’s Jacob King.
“The progression we have undertaken over the past couple of years has definitely led to a record of this calibre, and it is finally here to be shared and we couldn’t be more excited.”
The band say they were at their most collaborative when writing Adventures of E-Wan, engaging with one another’s ideas alongside the input of recording engineer Steven Marr.
“There isn’t one writer that takes over, we all make contributions to the song and have our own creative freedom to do what we want,” says guitarist Mitch Sizemore. “[Marr] made recording effortless and was open to accommodating the ideas we had in mind. I think our laid back personalities can sometimes be disadvantageous but in the studio it seems to work for us.”
Stream Adventures of E-Wan below.
