The Hunna, London’s indie quartet, are a band that don’t come around very often. As the myth goes, this time last year they were in a band that wasn’t really going anywhere. Yes they played regular gigs and rehearsed, but they weren’t setting the world on fire. Nothing unusual here so far, then after Christmas they decided to jack in their jobs and try and make a proper go of it. Eight months later they have over 17k Twitter followers, over 200k Facebook likes and one of the most hyped debut albums, titled 100, in recent times.

‘Bonfire’ gets the album started. After an a capella intro, surging drums and power chords will the speakers. The chorus is nasal shouts over a catchy backing track. It shows that the band understand the dynamics of alternative pop. As the guitars chug away the chorus comes back. As expected from the titles, smoke, ashes, flames, matches and wind are all mentioned. It’s a masterclass at insipid banality. ‘We Could Be’ is up next and it's more of the same. Indie-disco beats and angular guitars, but lyrically The Hunna are doing something almost interesting. As if expecting flack from future reviews, they’ve basically written a track decrying these bad reviews. Lyrics like “I bet you wish that you bothered, When this band gets discovered, Don't worry yeah we recovered” and “When you're in your car with your driver, You'll hear how we blew up like a bonfire, God knows we're survivors” is a slightly meta as it references the opening track, but the lyric that really hammers this home is “We could be on top, If it weren't for shit like you”. ‘She’s Causal’ slows things down a bit, showing that they can be heartfelt as well as all lairy and rowdy rowdy. Again the lyrics feel more like an after-thought “She makes my heart beat go faster, The thing is I trust her.” And “Because she's casual she likes it, Mine and she knows it, Gives when I need it, Says to me "Can you feel it?" She's casual but she don't mind.” Really sum this up. Yes the band are saying ‘nice’ things, but ultimately they’re saying nothing other than “I’ve got a bird and she loves me, even if I’m a bit of a lad and our relationship is casual, she loves it as she loves me”. I could go on with the next track and the one after, but I think you get the point. Musically it’s all a  bit and brash, apart from when it's quiet and sentimental, and lyrically its big and brash, apart from when its quietly sentimental. Granted there is something wrong with this method and it’s gotten The Hunna where they are now, which is sitting pretty with a heavily anticipated debut album in the bag.

After reading this review the next part might surprise you but I wish The Hunna well and I’m glad that they exist. In this day and age of playing it after and not rocking the boat The Hunna had the gumption to try something different and to take a risk. So for that I say “Fair play to them!” However the real problem with the band and their debut album is that for however well it was recorded and produced it isn’t actually saying anything. For all their collective efforts to make it sound edgy, angsty and provocative it, and the band too for that matter,  come across as banal and boring. These sounds could have been recorded by any other band and they would have sounded the same. That isn’t what I’m after these days, and in due course, maybe their fan base too.
Nick Roseblade

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