This sure was a trip back to any low budget late 80's American Collage movie! It s a real Déjà vu feeling because HUNGRYHEART sounds just like the mainstream almost Hardrock hit songs that made it to the films. This is light-weight AOR in the veins of John Parr, WHITE LION, TOTO, SURVIVOR etc. Ok, that might not have any relevance to the ones into this genre and I appear very uneducated. That's true, this style isn't for me at all. This is way too soft and is way to hit-oriented to appeal to me.

There's no doubt though that HUNGRYHEART knows what they're doing. Everything is very well played and "One Ticket To Paradise" has a very suitable production. Nice choir arrangements make the songs more dynamic. The balance between the guitars, the rest of the instruments and vocals is close to perfect. John Zighetti has a great voice and everything sounds absolutely the way it should, towards Jon Bon Jovi or Mike Tramp, just not as characteristic as these guys. A little more personality from him wouldn't hurt.

That's where it goes wrong for me. Even the cover seems so typical for the style. I normally can get into everything if it's interesting enough. HUNGRYHEART plays it very safe and then it gets boring to me. Even if the songs are good individually as a whole "One Ticket To Paradise" falls quite flat. The only song that really got to stuck on me is "Angela", one of the more up-tempo ones and is a song that could have fitted on one of the later Michael Schenker releases. There's absolutely more drive to this one than the rest and the song is catchy without being cheesy. Most everything else lacks personality and edge though. Of course, when it's not your favorite genre there needs to be something really special for the music to get stuck. I'm not surprised at all though that HUNGRYHEART has gotten really nice reviews for their releases because it sounds good. A little more edge and cheekiness could absolutely get more response from people who are not really into this genre.