Records: The Hunger's Cinematic Superthug

By Flynn Eckenrode

First off, I suggest that those of you who have waited patiently for the appearance of Cinematic Superthug, the debut CD from Houston rockers The Hunger, would be wiser to invest your money in an old Motley Crüe album. They at least had tongues firmly planted in cheek. These five elegant bachelors simply have their tongues curled in the earnest sneer of post-Soundgarden alternative rock. And it's really terribly predictable stuff (Stone Temple Pilots-core distortion and vocal whinging with a producer who maybe heard Prodigy once).

I don't know how many more vulnerable teenagers with Jackson guitars are going to have to be sacrificed to the dead idols of grunge music before our collective post-modern angst is allayed, but I hope it doesn't require another album from these guys. They make Matchbox 20 seem like a credible band.

The Hunger does seem to have a sense of humor, though. At least they printed their song lyrics on the CD insert, and with syntactic nonsequiturs like "Give me some relief from this hell/ The man behind the gun, he will kill" from their alterna-hymn, "Hey God," I can't help but imagine someone somewhere laughing. No wait, it was me. I'll give them one star for effort, though: the leather and bleached hair is a theatrical attempt to recapture the spirit of late '91. (Universal Records)

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