Music for an Accelerated Culture

Imagine a cross between Prodigy and 2 Unlimited, yes it is possible and Hadouken are the band that achieved that unlikely pairing on their debut full length album, Music For An Accelerated Culture. Track three was titled Game Over and computing gaming featured high on the band's list of influences, even down to their name which reportedly came from a specific fighting attack move in the Street Fighter game. Using computer generated bleeps and synthesized sounds to create a kind of wall of sound behind James Smith's vocals, tracks such as That Boy That Girl began to surface on the internet as early as February 2007 and some of the tracks had also appeared on the EP Not Here To Please You which was issued only as downloadable tracks or on the relatively new format of a USB memory stick, Hadouken waited until May 2008 to release their first album proper. Throughout the album, there was a programmed drum beat and bass line, making most of lyrical content almost irrelevant and one doubts the band knew too much about the Dutch techno band from the early 1990s, 2 Unlimited, but the synth riffs bear a remarkable similarity. Near to the end of the album was was the track Liquid Lives, the song that became a reasonably sized hit (well no.36 for one week) in the early summer of 2007. Perhaps the album was a classic example of a band waiting too long to officially release it and the fans excitement had already faded.