The Hunger - Cinematic Superthug
With enough power guitar work to keep any self respecting rock fan happy for a lifetime The Hunger, whose album Cinematic Superthug is the second since signing to Universal, have managed to get something else going on in there that may surprise anyone who thinks electronics and metal don't mix.
Such an uneasy alliance is hard to achieve. For starters you're looking at wiring the drummer up to a machine (which they invariably really hate - believe me). Second, a lot of time has to be spent looking at where all the programming work will actually fit. There's really no point using electronics if all you're going to do is interject the odd sound effect.
Closer To Me, which is the first real sign that a track may get really electronic, starts out with a pulsing analog pattern and also contains more than its fair share of techno stuff, but when it comes to providing real power play in steps the guitar. Phoenix and Anarchy come a lot closer, distributing the workload a lot more evenly, looking at options other than guitars to produce power when needed.
All in all a successful attempt at introducing modern elements into a genre that was ultimately pioneered by Def Leppard in the eighties and which is finally being taken further into relatively unknown territory.
Rating - 797,406 (out of a possible 1,000,000)
