Top Ten The Dear Hunter Songs

For those of us familiar with this incredible group - vote away!
The Top Ten
1 Red Hands

A riveting, emotionally powerful song that will most likely bring you to tears. Excellent lyrics that bring a simple topic - having to end a relationship to make things better for yourself - and spinning it up and down and around in so many directions. Red Hands finishes off with a very dramatic ending that really makes you feel for the Boy and can touch you in the deepest realms of your breaking heart. Pay attention to the lyrics, but don't listen if you're emotionally unstable.

2 The Lake and the River

Close Call between this and The bitter suite 1 and 2. But since this wonderful, epic journey of a song isn't even on this list as of now, I thought I most definitely have to change that!
One of the best songs ever written to be honest!

3 Mustard Gas

The sheer chaos and terror in this song are what really make it stand out as one of the best songs The Dear Hunter has ever written. The lyrics during the chorus are desperate, painful, and in need of a reason for the awful, awful war the protagonist is living. The absolute anarchy going on this song, the powerful riffs and chorus, and the chilling ending which holds some sort of powerful hope/terror to it are in perfect synchronization throughout the song. Includes some stellar guitar work. Eerie, just eerie.

4 Is There Anybody Here?

This one has a special place in my heart. An absolute masterpiece from beginning to end, and every instrument does an outstanding job. The vocals are possibly the best Casey has ever done, and you can practically feel his soothing voice weave throughout your mind as the song progresses. The melodies get stuck in your head, and after a beautiful build-up for the first few minutes, the song finishes off with a kick-ass guitar solo that will melt your brain and leave you absolutely speechless.

5 In Cauda Venenum
6 Waves

What seems to be an expansive and slightly different play off of the beginning melody in "The Lake and the River" is a song absolutely chock full of emotion and sadness, but all tipped with a touch of hopefulness. You don't really need to understand the story in this one to be amazed by it. I think anyone who has ever experienced the feeling of leaving someone you truly love will be able to connect to this song. It's main melody will you choke you up, leaving you with the feeling that you are being suffocated under endless and relentless waves on a stormy ocean. Yet there's something more there, something that is doing everything in its power to reassure you that you can keep on going. The vocals are the highlight of this one, but everything else is, as usual, undeniably gorgeous.

7 The Bitter Suite 1 and 2: Meeting Ms. Leading and Through the Dime

Begins soft, gentle, and uncertain - like stepping into hot water. And eventually it gets very hot, indeed. After a sweet and sour introduction, the song soon breaks into a rocking riff and suddenly you're thrown into a real 19th century city, and suddenly you've met the most beautiful woman in the world, and she's really rocking that world for you. Everything about this song is just so cool, but the bass is absolutely what drives it to the end. Bottom line? It's just bad-ass.

8 The Moon / Awake
9 The Old Haunt
10 Smiling Swine

Starts hard, happy, and right off the bat, with a seemingly appropriate nod towards The Beatles' "A Day in the Life". Many different story elements are happening in this song, and an early glimpse at the Priest is given for us - a unsettling glimpse, at that. But it doesn't matter, because we're happy, and we don't care about anything besides the girl we've just fallen in love with. And the latter half of the song deals with that matter in probably the most beautiful and joyous way possible. Smiling Swine is guaranteed to make you grin like an idiot.

The Contenders
11 A Night On the Town
12 The Bitter Suite IV and V: The Congregation and the Sermon in the Silt
13 Tripping In Triplets (Blue)

A refreshing break away from The Dear Hunter's complex and extensive story arch, Tripping in Triplets off of The Color Spectrum is one of the most gorgeous and relaxing songs I've ever heard. It definitely produces all sorts of blue images in the mind - gentle waterfalls in secluded forests, whispering streams, a stark, cloudless sky - among other visuals. What The Color Spectrum effectively achieves, however, is the ability for these images to be completely unique to each individual listener. The lyrics seem to me to be describing a feeling of uncertainty and as if I'm lost in life, as if I've fallen off the path and into a stream flowing in an unknown direction. The acoustic guitar in this song is so touching and beautiful, but also oh-so empty and lost.

14 The Most Cursed of Hands / Who Am I
15 The Bitter Suite 3: Embrace

This one has truly something beautiful about. Casey has perfectly captured the emotions in the Boy's mind in this song, but pair it with the dramatic irony it presents and it gives it a completely different edge. He's fallen in love (and is MAKING love), which is incredibly portrayed in the beginning, but the fact that his lover Ms. Leading is a prostitute and that he's too naive to understand the consequences of that are what give this song its depressing and hopeless twist. It's the notion that he feels like this is going to last forever, but that it truthfully won't, and that his lover is completely aware of that. Full of gorgeous piano from beginning to end, and it finishes off with an emotionally-charged and extremely powerful guitar-driven ending that just completely messes with your heart. The soft, chilling bass-line at the very end of this song deserves its own mention. Another masterpiece.

16 The March
17 1878
18 Life and Death
19 At the End of the Earth
20 The Poison Woman
21 Lillian (Violet)

Nothing better than going balls deep right when he screams that last chorus

22 Whisper
23 The Fire
24 Cascade

Powerful bass riffs and vocals. Rich contrasts. One of their best!

25 A Curse of Cynicism (Red)

Another awesome song from The Color Spectrum, I consider this one the best from the Red EP because it really does make me see flashing red lights in my head. The driving, distorted guitar, the messy and vicious vocals, and the lyrics all simultaneously make you feel a constant surge of bad-assery and some sort of desperate ferociousness. Aren't we all a bit cynical at our cores?

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