Van Hunt: What Were You Hoping For?

Van Hunt
What Were You Hoping For?
(Red Distribution)

Few are as engaging as Van Hunt when it comes to spiritually connecting emotions, rhythm and blues, sensuality, and funk. The beauty of Van Hunt is his poetic sensibility and dedication to rhythmic soul. On his fourth album, entitled What Were You Hoping For?, he seamlessly gives way to a more rock-infused sound.  This sympathetic sexy muse, sounding more like a love child of Prince and Jimi Hendrix, goes all out on sweltering odes of pure sexiness and pompous boisterousness, still with an organic bluesy soulfulness.

“North Hollywood” explodes as the first track. Outfitted with a depraved bass riff, wicked prickly electric guitar and a dramatic rock homage to North Hollywood, with lyrics like “I know you wish you could live in my neighborhood,” he then goes on to tell interestingly why. This Grammy award winner’s fusion style shines on the punk power of “Watching You Go Crazy is Driving Me Insane,”a wild freak-out anthem. “Moving Targets” is an escapist dream, enhanced by glowing piano, rumbling soft bass, drums in echoes and hopeful vocals.  “Eyes Like Pearls” is more purely rock driven and the stiffness of the rhythm works, Van Hunt sounding his closest to Hendrix. Van Hunt’s gifts are his vocals that softly glue together his engaging neo-flower child persona armed with his electric rock soul guitar twists yielding each with the heft of a hungry sword when it comes to love, sex, romanticism and beauty.  What Were You Hoping For? is a detachment from his past albums breaking more into his remarkable ability to rock out.