Hunters – Bootleg Bar - Best New Bands

Los Angeles – Lost in the fiery Nirvana Bleach era fuzz of Derek Watson’s guitar Isabel Almeida, vocals, points her finger toward the exposed ceiling. Pink hair falls in her face as she grips the microphone tightly. In the closing moments of the grungtastic “Acid Head” her blood-curdling wail has gotten everybody’s attention. Hunters is in Los Angeles for the first time and their grunge packing punk punch just knocked out the room.

So the story goes one New Year’s Eve in the recent past the Hunters were performing in a New York basement. Mid-set Watson catches a champagne bottle to the face. Bloody and swelling, the group marches on in true drunken rock star fashion. James Iha, ex-Smashing Pumpkins guitarist, happened to catch the performance and expressed interest in working with the group. They thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.

After an Iha produced EP entitled, Hands on Fire, materialized in late 2011 the group performed everywhere and anywhere it could. Their live shows became talking points for those who witnessed the volatile nature of a Hunters noise explosion. The Brazilian born and recent Philly transplant, Almeida, once banged her head so hard during a show she got a minor concussion – just another day at the office.

Raw and peppered with that 90s Sub Pop sound, Hunters isn’t looking to carry the torch. It seems they’d much rather carve their names into rock music with a chainsaw. Touring in support of their self-titled debut on Mom+Pop, out last month, Hunters now has 15 songs worth of fuel.

The dark shred of “Street Trash” had Almeida using her whole body to seemingly hit notes. The fist-pumping, high-kicking, little dynamo feeds off the music’s volume and energy. She convulses her way through songs, often times wrapping the mic cord around her head while writhing on the floor. Her vocals are powerful with an air of sensuality a la Kim Gordon in “Bull in the Heather.”

It was the driving floor toms of “Deadbeat,” though, coupled with the deep, meaty distorted guitar part that had the Hunters at their most effective. Teetering between a Seattle sound of decades past with a flash of new blood interpretation Hunters isn’t a throwback, but an extension of a revered genre.

They may not know it yet, but their nine-song set almost certainly booked them a return trip back west. The bratty back-and-forth of Watson and Almeida’s vocals is heart and soul of the Hunters abrasive charm and the hurricane-like spectacle of their live show is rightfully hyped.

Photo By Ian Joulain – Thumbnail By Jessica June Kim

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Ian Joulain

Somewhere between Sublime’s 40oz. to Freedom and Dr. Dre’s The Chronic something clicked inside a young Ian Joulain’s mind. His love for music had taken root and the only way to satiate this newfound passion was mass consumption of any and all genres. While gravitating toward punk rock, hip-hop, and jazz he discovered his distaste for pop-country, but blames that mostly on the excess of tractor and NASCAR mentions in the genre’s lyrics. That said, Joulain has never met a drink that was too stiff or a beach that he didn't like. He hopes to one day hug a koala and would love to ask Greg Ginn why he’s such a dick.