writing new material for The Hunting Party as opposed to their previous albums. While for all their previous albums they used the traditional method of writing, demoing and rerecording in the studio, songs were instead written and composed in the studio itself, with no material being written or composed beforehand. Delson spoke about the methods used on the album in an interview with Premier Guitar, saying that "Something unintentional might be the coolest sound I make all day, and knowing how to allow those mistakes to happen and to shape them potentially makes for some great music." The album has been described as alternative metal, nu metal, hard rock, rap rock and rap metal by professional reviewers. Shinoda described the album's sound as a 1990s style of rock record: "It's a Rock record; "it's loud and it's Rock, but not in the sense of what you've heard before, which is more like '90s hardcore-punk–thrash". He described the "weak" status of modern rock in the music industry as an inspiration in recording a heavier rock album; to try to bring the sound of the 1990s back to the forefront. Shinoda criticized the modern state of alternative radio, stating "There’s so much stuff that sounds like HAIM or CHVRCHES or Vampire Weekend that I’m full. The thing I’m hungry for is not that. I turn on the rock station in L.A. and it sounds like Disney commercial music." This led to a response from CHVRCHES, with their lead singer Lauren Mayberry calling Shinoda's comment "a pointless dig." Bennington agreed with Shinoda's comments, as he said, "The bands I was listening to when I was growing up were all doing really innovative shit—Jane’s Addiction, Alice in Chains, Nirvana... Bands like the Refreshments and the Rembrandts, that music fucking angers me to this day. And the same thing is happening now, where there’s all this stuff that feels like the soundtrack to 'Friends' or 'The Wizards of Waverly Place.'" In an interview with MusicRadar, Delson stated that the album would feature more guitar solos. He further stated that "this is from someone who was quoted early on as saying I hated them. Not that I hated them as a listener; I just don’t want to play any; I shirked guitar solos. Early on, I felt as though the songs we were making aesthetically didn't want them. This new batch of songs, to me, always