In nearly three years since Charlotte hard-rock trio Hungry Girl’s last release, the band has been doing a lot of adulting. With one member becoming a first-time father and another tying the knot, one could say the guys have matured into a full-grown Hungry Woman. All dad jokes aside, however, the members’ ventures into adulthood haven’t dulled the edge of Hungry Girl, as proven with the debut of “Honest,” the first track from their upcoming full-length album, Rip Currents.
Give it a listen below, and remember where you heard it first, folks.
Despite being the lead track and first single from Rip Currents, “Honest” was the last song written and recorded for the album, which is Hungry Girl’s first release since the 2017 Cool Shots EP and first full-length since 2015’s self-titled LP.
Though guitarist and vocalist Jason Skipper formed the band with drummer Jimmy Lail in 2011, Rip Currents is the band’s first recording with bassist Jake Wade, who joined just as they released Cool Shots.
The album release will coincide with the release of Hungry Girl IPA from Birdsong Brewing on Nov. 1, for which the band will host an album preview listening party at the brewery with DJ Justin Aswell. Hungry Girl will also perform at an official album release party at Visulite Theatre with Petrov and ACNE on Nov. 7.
In “Honest,” Skipper lays lyrics about truth and introversion over high-energy guitar riffs, showing that Hungry Girl hasn’t veered from its signature mix of metal and melodic post-punk pop rock.
Skipper gave us some insight into Hungry Girl’s writing process, explaining how he and Lail built the song on the bones of old, unfinished songs: “I had the chorus riff for a year or so and Jimmy always wanted to use it … We wanted something simple and catchy for the verse, so I started playing a stripped-down, palm-muted note and singing vocal melody ideas. It just kind of came together within a few minutes, and then we jammed on the two riffs with Jake so we could groove and toss around ideas. About a week later I wrote some lyrics, and we took the bridge riff from an older song that we had never finished and recorded a demo. Not much changed when it came time to record it. We all felt it was a strong song that had potential to be the first single from the start.”
The band took some time off from performing and recording after Cool Shots, as Lail and Skipper attended to creating and building their respective families, but the hiatus also gave the newly formed trio time to get comfortable with each other.
The addition of Wade to Hungry Girl “gave us new life as a band,” according to Lail. 
“We were able to really spend more time playing with Jake and developing our sound as a three piece, both live and in the studio,” he said. “We ultimately decided we didn’t want to put a deadline on the record or rush it in any way in order to get it right, and because of that we’re all really pleased with how Rip Currents turned out.”
Wade said he believes Rip Currents is the best Hungry Girl project to date in terms of songwriting, production and performance, and it’s not only because he plays on this one, he joked.
“But seriously, in my opinion, it has some of our catchiest material as well as some of our heaviest stuff,” he continued. “So, I think it makes for a really cool record, and it all flows together very smoothly.”
Rip Currents was recorded and mixed by Powerstance at Radpad Studios (Columns, 2013 Wolves) and mastered by Dave Harris at Studio B Mastering (Kylesa, ANTiSEEN, Bombadil, Dex Romweber, Corrosion of Conformity). Artwork was designed by Lee Herrera of HRVRD and Foreign Air. Rip Currents marks Hungry Girl’s fifth release on Powerstance Records. The LP will be available this November on 12-inch vinyl, CD, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music and other digital retailers.
This work by Queen City Nerve is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
