Genre : Indie progressive rock, Fusion funk-rock
Released : July 1st, 2022
Label : Cave & Canary Goods
FFO : TWIABP, Thank You Scientist, The Mars Volta, Bent Knee
I became utterly enamored with The Dear Hunter back when I first discovered their series of "Acts" albums and their rich world-building and storytelling along with their highly compelling and masterful songwriting.
And yet, for the past few years I had kind of fallen out of love for TDH's style, especially after being not especially impressed by their most recent outputs while listeners awaited the conclusion of the "Acts" storyline.
Going into this new album of theirs which exists outside of the "Acts" time-line (although that remains to be fully confirmed), I was highly skeptical and braced for disappointment.
However, from the get-go "Antimai" reveals itself to reach similar heights of grandiose and ambitious songwriting than the larger part of the band's past body of work, unveiling a new, densely detailed fictional world which mirrors the multi-layered richness of the music unfolding.
The Dear Hunter have evolved from being a progressive rock outfit with indie and jazzy influences to a full-on fusion funk/jazz band with a progressive rock edge on "Antimai" and they pull it off amazingly well.
Every performance on here is spot on and the sound engineering makes "Antimai" a genuine pleasure to experience and is worthy of high praise given the amount of details it has to work around with and turn into a cohesive ensemble.
The band delivers some of their perhaps most endearing, gleeful, exotic and danceable material yet, however, the lyrical content depicting a dystopian society and honing in on the social inequalities and class discrepancies at work creates a stark contrast whilst echoing the realities of our own world a bit too close for comfort.
There's such a wide palette of different sounds, styles and influences all happening at once in one big narrative of cinematic proportions, and everything is executed so tastefully that it makes for an incredibly immersive and satisfying listen; so much so that by the time the record reaches its powerful conclusion, it's hard to believe that an hour has gone by.
All in all, "Antimai" has by far exceeded my expectations and reignited my love and appreciation for this band of talented musicians and storytellers.
If like me, you had lost touch and interest with The Dear Hunter's artistry over recent years and felt underwhelmed by the band's latest outputs, do yourself a favour and don't miss out on this masterpiece.
Also, hang on a minute...did these absolute madlads just reimagine Crash Bandicoot's soundtrack as an easter egg in the album's fifth track? Pure madness!
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