Best Songs from the Dear Hunter's Act III: Life and Death
Act III: Life and Death is the third studio album by American rock band The Dear Hunter, released on June 23, 2009 under Triple Crown Records. It is the 3rd part of a 6 act story.The intro to this song is utterly amazing, further showing off the emotion that can be displayed by Casey. The song is extremely chaotic and captures the panic felt by the main character quite well, transitioning through many different emotions, but with this constant overlying sense of panic and dread, yet also encompassing a feeling of hopelessness and despair. Each element works utterly perfectly here, with the heavy use of orchestration creating one of the most vivid pieces of musical imagery has ever made.
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This song is utterly beautiful, with the best vocal melodies on the album, and takes the the incredibly sad tone of the previous two songs, and then also adds a distinct layer of darkness to it as well, due to the decisions that have just been made by the main character. This is by far the greatest ballad on the album.
The album definitely starts off with a bang by having what can quite easily be described as the most bombastic song the band has ever written kicking off the album, with amazing trumpet lines, a wonderfully fast pace, and vocals that are at their peak in terms of energy. I find the way it then transitions to a fairly laid back song near the end to be cool as well.
The amazing orchestral intro leads perfectly into some incredibly powerful vocal work, with a constant, pumping drumbeat that creates another song on the album that feels as if it is some sort of march. The recurring strings sound incredible, and the way the song transitions into the amazing chorus is nothing short of breathtaking.
I can't describe this song as anything other than extremely fun. The chorus is so wonderfully catchy, and the instrumentals are great, especially the piano and the occasional small burst of clarinet. Once the saxophone kicks in near the end, the song really gets brought up another few notches for sure as well.
The vocals are quite far back in the mix on this song, and everything has a very odd atmosphere to it, with a lot more use of things such as synth, making this quite an odd song to hear on this album.
This is undoubtedly the catchiest song by the band, with a memorable chorus and fun, simplistic instrumentals all around. The banjo is a fun addition to the song as well. I have one big issue with this song though, and it's how incredibly simplistic and sometimes outright awful the lyrics are here, which does kinda hinder my enjoyment of the song to some extent.
I enjoy the backing vocals quite a lot here, containing a certain charm to them to add to the fairly happy tone of the song overall.
Continuing straight on from where Son left off, this song takes the emotion established there and further increases the impact of it. The increased density of the song all cutting out to a stripped back vocal melody is a great way to end the song.
The lyrics in this song are quite unsettling to say the least, but this perfectly fits the character of this minor antagonist, really showing how deplorable this person is. This is an extremely straightforward, concise with a no particular curveballs thrown into the mix, but an undeniably strong song despite this.
The ballads on this album are in general more beautiful compared to previous albums by the band, and feel much less like an afterthought or filler, which is what I felt many of the other ones would feel like (bar a couple of major exceptions). The chorus in particular is excellent here.
This song has a very hopeful tone to it, contrasting the previous song perfectly. I enjoy the way that the song becomes more dense throughout, starting of with a simple melodic line, and then slowly building layer after layer of vocals while introducing some lovely string parts.
Despite the song only going on for 2 minutes, the extremely melancholy tone the song has, combined with the sombre piano work makes this an incredible piece of music
This intro has an extremely epic, grandiose feel to it, with powerful vocal harmonisations and a drumbeat that makes it sound like a march, fitting in perfectly with the fact that this album tells the story of the main character going to war.