Unlike recent
Hot Tuna albums,
Hoppkorv found the group acting less as a mouthpiece for guitarist
Jorma Kaukonen's compositions and more as a heavy rock cover band, handling such familiar material as
Buddy Holly's "It's So Easy" and
Chuck Berry's "Talkin' 'Bout You," although "Watch the North Wind Rise" was one of
Kaukonen's better tunes. Even on the originals, the tempo had picked up, the arrangements were shorter; nothing here ran as long as five minutes, and the sound had been filled out by the occasional addition of keyboards, second guitar, and background vocals. So,
Hoppkorv was closer to a straightforward pop/rock album than many
Hot Tuna releases, and for that, predictably, it got higher marks from critics, who appreciated the variety, and lower marks from
Tuna fans, who found less music to boogie to. ~ William Ruhlmann