The Dear Hunter – Act III: Life And Death
Following up their first two releases, 2006’s EP Act I: The Lake South, The River North and 2007’s full length, Act II: The Meaning Of And All Thing Regarding Ms.Leading, theatrical rockers, The Dear Hunter have returned with the third act in a planned six act story arc, Act III: Life And Death.
The Dear Hunter began as the side project for Casey Crescenzo while he was still a member of the now defunct post hardcore act The Receiving End of Sirens. While it’s true that TREOS did have their theatrical moments, see Planning a Prison Break off of their disc Between The Heart and the Synapse, nothing even hinted at what Crescenzo was capable off upon being kicked out of TREOS in 2006. Wanting to create music that didn’t feel smothered within its own genre Crescenzo set out to craft a theatrical brand of hard rock that borrowed elements from anywhere and everywhere. On their first two releases, there are songs that point towards jazz, big band, and opera, but all while maintaining a slightly post hardcore bent.
ACT III finds the band walking the same path, but with some less light hearted fair, resulting in a darker and more intense installment in the series. Like the albums before it, Life and Death, is a dramatized to the hilt version of Cresenzo’s own life with this more epic disc having a very war like feel to it.
Songs like the dense, multi-layered In Cauda Venenum, make use of Cresenzo’s thick vocals and team them, at times with backing vocals that feel like they belong on a broadway stage. Couple that with instrumentation too deep to fully dissect even on a fourth or fifth time through the song. You’ll notice that there are bongo’s or a trumpet where you hadn’t realized it before.
The Tank opens with strings, and brings in the big band feel and deep gang vocals backing Cresenzo’s staccato post hardcore voice, before it slows down and smooth, almost volta feeling vocals, leads us back into the deeper, darker, heavier style. The song recounts a man on the battle field charging forward despite the likely sense that he is not going to make it. The song wraps you in it’s story and style and carries you through the same battle.
Life and Death, is dense and epic and finds The Dear Hunter pushing their story forward with methodical steps that promise three more gems to finish out the story arc. The Dear Hunter is in a genre all it’s own now, one which can not be described so much as it needs to be experienced. The orchestration is beyond anything going on in any other genre, whether those genre’s consider themselves prog or otherwise. It’s hard to listen to this album, or any Dear Hunter album and not realize that you’re listening to something so incredibly original and deep that it almost pure gold.
The Dear Hunter – In Cauda Venenum
The Dear Hunter – The Tank
Tags: Aaron Long, Act I:The Lake South The River North, Act II: The Meaning Of And All Things Regarding Ms.Leading, Act III: Life And Death, album, Casey Cresenzo, The Dear Hunter, The Recieving End Of Sirens
