Stabbing keyboards to the fore, melodic guitar solos and well-structured songs.

Hunter is a five-piece AOR band from Chile who are not ashamed to jump into a time machine and transport us back to the eighties, when their style of music filled the airwaves. The info accompanying the album names their influences as Europe, Journey and Bon Jovi amongst others, and after repeated plays I can understand why.

I have a feeling their music may divide opinions, as of the ten songs on offer, five are sung in English and five in Spanish. Personally, I feel this adds a certain charm to their music, as I have never had a problem with vocalists with distinct accents. Singer Edgardo Carabantes has a good voice, and to me that's all that should matter. As musicians, the whole band delivers what it sets out to do and produces a strong eighties vibe throughout, with excellent lead guitarist, Claudio Guerrero, given the opportunity to shine.
Most of the songs have well structured lead guitar solos which add to the flow of the tracks, my favourites being opener 'Snake' and the ballad 'Ojos Tristes', both delivered in Spanish. This track has a lovely understated piano intro and bolstered by an uplifting lead guitar solo towards the end.

Hunter deliver a solid debut album, but if I have one criticism it's that everything is rather mid-paced, with only 'King Of Pain', with its heavier mid-song break, providing the edge I prefer in my music nowadays. I feel I have heard it all before, but hey, they are an AOR band and they have written a very competent AOR album. The have, however, come up with the cheesiest lyric I've heard in a long time in the albums closing track, 'Warmer Love', as mid-song has the following spoken lyric, "Oh you look so cold now, you're freezing my soul" − how lovely!

In summary, if you are a lover of traditional AOR, with stabbing keyboards to the fore, melodic guitar solos, well-structured songs and are prepared to accept that the band choose to sing in their native language occasionally, then there is much to enjoy here.

Robin McGhie