The Dear Hunter - Migrant (Pre-Release Stream)

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1554459/the-dear-hunter-migrant-exclusive-album-premiere

I've always liked The Dear Hunter. I've never really loved them, or been a huge fan of them, even though I totally respected how great the songwriting was. But this has totally changed that. I don't know why, but this just strikes a chord with me (no pun intended) and I'm enjoying it far more than any of the acts, or The Color Spectrum.

I guess they abandoned the six-act idea. Listenin'.

This is way better than Color Spectrum that's for sure

I guess they abandoned the six-act idea. Listenin'.

I bet he's taking the Star Wars approach, just in reverse. You'll get them in 30 years.

I didn't even listen to all of the color spectrum because what I heard was disappointing.

This is good in a way completely different than the Acts. This is the product of a band evolving. I'm thoroughly impressed three songs in so far.

I didn't even click this link because one guy said it wasn't good.

Oh, hi Anski.

I dunno if that was a vague stab at me, but I just listened to a couple from different EP's and wasn't impressed. Wasn't gonna march through all of it and figured the Dear Hunter had gone in a direction I didn't much care for.

Which makes absolutely no sense to me, considering each EP is a different style of music, and also very accurate to the color it represents, in my mildly synesthetic opinion. If you don't like it that's fine, but I have absolutely no respect for your opinion if you didn't even give every track/color a chance. Seriously, how busy is your life that you can't find time to listen to a few hours of music?

I'm excited for this CD. Like I am for most music I'm finding, lately. I guess I just like liking things. Well, music anyway.

The acts are nearly perfect, whereas the color spectrum had like 2 amazing songs, and 3 pretty good songs. The single from Migrant is good, so I'm excited to hear more. Especially before the show.

Which makes absolutely no sense to me, considering each EP is a different style of music, and also very accurate to the color it represents, in my mildly synesthetic opinion. If you don't like it that's fine, but I have absolutely no respect for your opinion if you didn't even give every track/color a chance. Seriously, how busy is your life that you can't find time to listen to a few hours of music?

Remarkably busy, working and schooling full time. It's valid not to take my argument, seeing as I haven't seen the whole picture. I'll give the rest of them a chance when I am able.

The Color Spectrum sucks, and is an overdone concept in music. This album is sounding pretty good though. But Act IV please.

I loved Violet. But that's about it.

Violet was the closest to what all the other Dear Hunter albums sound like.

Orange is my favorite. And then tied for 2nd is Black or Red. From there, White, Yellow, Violet, and Indigo. I have to be in a specific mood for blue. I didn't care for green at all.

I didn't think Violet sounded very burlesque at all. I imagine you're drawing more theoretical connections between them though.

Home is a good song, and so is Filth & Squalor.

Violet is my favorite, and I liked the song Home, and I actually liked some of Green. The rest doesn't appeal to me.

I liked Black because it reminded me of Queens of the Stone Age, or Nine Inch Nails. It was neat to hear Dear Hunter from a much darker, grittier perspective.

I loved Red because I also love Manchester Orchestra. They recorded those 4 tracks at their studio, with some of the band mates adding parts (like the singer).

Orange reminds me a little bit of Incubus. With dominant 7ths all over the place. And, god, the rhythms and syncopation on those tracks. It just gets me so pumped.

I don't know what band Yellow reminds me of, but that first song feels like the first day of spring every time I hear it.

Violet and White are great, but it sounds like standard Dear Hunter type music to me. Which, again, isn't bad. But I went in to the color spectrum wanting to hear something vastly different for each color. So I guess that's why I liked the Color Spectrum so much.

I like them better when they just write what they want, instead of trying to "be" something. A lot of times on TCS, it sounded like they were forcing themselves away from doing something that they wanted to, because it wouldn't fit the theme. I know that the acts have a theme as well, but they really just take it in all types of directions, without real constraint.

I also don't like TDH as a band that writes "songs," and I like them so much more when they write pieces of music. They're at their best when unburdened by guidelines, such as song length or style. This is kind of why Red Hands even stood out as their weakest song. ( Though its still awesome, it just doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. ) I later found out that it was one of the first songs Casey wrote, so it makes sense that it feels a little tacked-on.

Ugh, I had a whole huge thing to post in reply to that, but even if it is how I really feel it sounds incredibly pretentious to say it all. I can't help but want to use what I've learned in music school every time I listen to music, but spouting it off all the time in front of you guys must get annoying.

I was going to go in to some spiel about how TDH writes good music, but when you confine yourself to a 6 minute format it doesn't matter how much artsy noodling you throw in between your chorus and verse, you're still writing "songs." And then I was going to say how much I still absolutely love that kind of music. And then I was going to say that I still wouldn't call it a "piece of music" compared to something, say, Beethoven would write. And then, even though I believed what I just said to be true, I still rolled my eyes at myself. And then I was going to mention how I love to listen to "songs" all day long because they're easier to listen to, and don't waste time getting their ideas out, and how I love patterns and knowing that the chorus is coming up again and wondering how it'll be a little different this time, and oh god my head is a complete mess sometimes.

I did have one coherent point to add, though, and it's this:

I'm of the belief that limitations are what truly bring creativity forward. I've experienced that first hand. I always find myself more creative when I just have my laptop and some cheap MIDI-based program like TabIt, as compared to when I have my entire music library and a MIDI keyboard at my fingertips. Something about actually having to use my imagination to hear what it's supposed to sound like, and/or battling against the program itself (being used to something being easier, and having to try harder to achieve similar results i.e. CHALLENGING myself) makes me more creative as a whole. Which makes perfect sense, right? Activating a part of the brain, and then tapping in to it. But yeah, limitations breed creativity, which is why I ... I guess "sympathized" with the Color Spectrum. I appreciated the challenge they put before themselves, to write 32 tracks in those confines.

But now for the obligatory, and somewhat vague theoretical nonsense to accompany it:

Spoiler for metaphorical theory psycho bable:

And also, you know, with all that music theory and history, and classical composers bending the rules, but doing so SLOWLY, always just slightly pushing the envelope but always constraining themselves to the social norms of music at the time whether they knew they were or not etc etc. You know, all that stuff about how music history as a whole is a story about filling up a box with ideas until it was full, and then trying to stuff MORE in, and then eventually getting a bigger box, filling THAT one up, and trying to stuff EVEN MORE in, and then getting a BIGGER box and repeating, and eventually saying "fuck the box" and all that. But even 12 tone music, which sounds like it has no rules, in fact has incredibly strict rules to follow. Creativity comes from being challenged, and you need limitations to be challenged.

I'm done here. I'm gonna go play Skyrim for the next 4 hours.

I agree with that to a point, but I think there's also a point when one becomes too limited, and therefore the more creative thing to do in theory would be to break outside of that barrier. If I restrict myself to writing nothing but root-note bass lines, power chords, and C Major scale, how creative could I really get?

There's also a difference between limiting yourself with software/instrumentation and limiting yourself melodically, and I'm not really sure which one you're referring to, if not both.

Both. I was just using one example.

But the whole point of being so limited is to find ways to be creative within those limits. You don't immediately see the potential of writing with only root-note bass lines, power chords, and c major scales. But isn't that the whole point? That it's not obvious? That you have to put in a lot of effort to use those few tools to make something unique?

Hypothetical examples, though.

Some of the most memorable parts of the acts are the little one-off things that never come back again. The high bass lead at the end of the bitter suite comes to mind. It's beautiful because it isn't ground into my head over and over again. I get what you're saying in that there are merits to everything in music if you really look at it, but I got into TDH specifically because of that stuff. It's why I like a little progressive in almost everything I listen to. Compare it to video games: I love games like Half-Life 2, Skyrim, Super Mario Galaxy, and Portal 2, where I'm given something to do for a bit, and then just as I get comfortable with it, it's taken away and I'm given something else to do that's equally intriguing. If a developer took one element from those games, for example fighting zombies with a gravity gun like in Ravenholm, and stretched it out into a full game, I would just get sick of it and not go back.

TL;DR: The acts are greater than the sum of their parts, whereas TCS was called a concept album, but was really only a theoretical concept, with no real mortar holding each brick together.

So, thoughts on the new cd?

I still haven't really given it a good listen, sadly. I'll post once I do, though.