The Dear Hunter’s latest installment in its vaguely outlined rock opera is its darkest work yet, reflective of where the series’ protagonist is in his life.
The boy is the nameless central character of this album, Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional, as well as the other albums, acts I through IV. He has gone through a number of trials, often due to the antagonists: the pimp and the priest. This man is a priest by day, with a thriving congregation, and a pimp by night, running a brothel that used to employ the mother of the boy, Ms. Terri.
If you’re lost already, that is understandable and expected. Casey Crescenzo, the frontman of The Dear Hunter, and writer of the series, speaks few words about the plot of the complex, five-album story he has been working on since 2005. On his website, there is a statement from him saying that though he is “not an elusive, or mysterious person,” he enjoys “the mystery and elusion” of his album series.
Part of the series’ genius is that it explores the part of everyone that causes compromising beliefs in outstanding circumstances. The boy is faced with a multitude of moral quandaries throughout the series that have no clear correct response. He picks one outcome and moves forward with it, all the while reflecting on whether or not his actions were just.
While there is a significant amount of background information in the previous albums, I will simply set the scene for the beginning of the latest album. The boy has left his home by the lake, moved to the city, fought in a war and returned with an ambition to inspire change in the city. At this point, he has committed many acts of questionable moral substance, but his awareness of these deplorable deeds still entreats the listener to his situation. His ambition and desire help the city drive him to leveraging his connections with a politician, and the boy is elected mayor.
At this point, the pimp and the priest leverages his knowledge that the boy’s mother was a prostitute and blackmails him into allowing The Dime, his brothel, to continue operating. The boy ran for office wishing to stop this man, but he finds himself justifying his actions because he can help the city in other ways.
The boy at the start of Act V is nothing like the boy at the start of Act I, and he continues to bear the burden of his questionable decisions. The album introduces Mr. Usher, a character that offers the boy an immoral means of taking down his greatest enemy: the pimp and the priest. The song that introduces him features a new sound from the acts series: a swing song with jazzy vocals. On the next track, Crescenzo sings both parts of a debate between Mr. Usher and the boy about whether or not he should stoop to the level of the pimp and the priest.
The boy discusses his own moral shortcomings with his son on the next track, titled “Light.” He explains that he too is flawed — despite how young children may view their parents and he croons a reminder to his son to “know that your father too has made mistakes.” Immediately after this track, the boy gains the courage to carry out the plan to take down the pimp and the priest in the high-energy single “Gloria.” Crescenzo’s ability to evoke emotional responses to his singing is present on “Gloria” as much as any other track in the series, as he belts out a chorus that empowers both the boy and the album’s listener.
The album series shifts to its darkest tone in the subsequent tracks. The plan moves forward, and as the pimp and the priest is distracted, the boy is able to burn down his brothel. The titles of the tracks “The Flame (Is Gone),” and “The Fire (Remains)” are both references to the opening track of Act I, in which Crescenzo sings “the flame is gone, the fire remains,” foreshadowing the fate of the boy. Cross-album connections such as these make The Dear Hunter’s work unique in its continuity. While it feels that Crescenzo has had the entire story planned out since 2005, he has cultivated the story along the way.
Despite the pimp and the priest rallying the common people against him, the boy feels vindicated and kills the pimp and the priest, knowing that his actions will likely lead to his own death. He reflects on his life, and prays that he will be met by his mother at his lakeside childhood home after he dies.
This latest album brings back themes of moral ambiguity, becoming evil to fight evil and the abuse of power. Song such as “The Haves Have Naught,” “Mr. Usher” and “The Most Cursed Hands/Who am I?” exist in musical territory that had yet to be tread on by prior acts. This seemed impossible after the experimental rock group’s four previous genre-blending albums in the series.
The character of the boy is developed significantly over the albums, and his good intentions gone awry make the story tragic yet relatable. The listener is left weighing the morality of the boy’s actions, as he does himself throughout the series.
The melodic callbacks are a treat for those with the musical ear to pick up on them , as many songs pull from melodies of earlier songs in a theatrical nature. The total collection now is more than five hours long..
Crescenzo’s ability to sing in varied tones allows him to portray different characters and allows the listener to follow the story along more easily, which is hugely important with such a complex medium of long-form storytelling.
He released a statement on his website stating that the final album in the series — set to be a 6-part story — will not be presented in the same form as the previous five albums. The group is touring this fall, performing what Crescenzo called in his online statement, “a celebration for every person who ever toiled over the meaning of a verse; the placement of an illustration; the name of a song; the point of view the lyrics maintain.”
In a cultural landscape of overanalysis yielding simplistic explanations of music, The Dear Hunter has laid the pieces of a puzzle in its the band’s series, punctuated by the dramatic fifth act. The listeners can piece the story together however they please, without concrete right or wrong, making this open-to-interpretation epic a breath of fresh air.
