The Dear Hunter Tickets

It’s been almost a decade since Casey Crescenzo brought The Dear Hunter – both the band and the character of the same name – to life with his 2006 debut full-length, Act I: The Lake South, The River North. Although it was evident from his stint as singer of The Receiving End Of Sirens, the record revealed Crescenzo’s incredibly inventive and ambitious musical flair, something which has been evolving ever since. The two albums which followed – 2007’s Act II: The Meaning Of, And All Things Regarding Ms. Leading and 2009’s Act III: Life And Death – cemented the now 32-year-old as a maverick, idiosyncratic talent whose music, while fitting a modern aesthetic, was also from a bygone era. 

Now, six years and two albums after The Dear Hunter released Act III: Life And Death, Crescenzo has returned to the narrative of the anti-hero who shares the band’s name, applying all of the knowledge and experience of the last ten years to this new chapter. Picking up where the story left off – with the eponymous protagonist assuming the identity of his late brother and returning home – Act IV: Rebirth In Reprise is an album that explores the complex notions of who and what we are, and which attempts to answer its own questions through the wanderings and wonderings of the album’s protagonist. Yet as the plot and the music weave their way through these fifteen songs, it’s clear that they transcend the boundaries of the Dear Hunter story. This is as much about a return in real life as it is the fictional story.

The result is the band’s most orchestral and multi-layered set of songs to date. Both nuanced and euphoric – sometimes at the same time – their very essence breathes life back into a story that has been on pause for over half a decade, reigniting the lives of the characters with heart and aplomb. That’s something Crescenzo insists could only have happened by taking a break from the world with The Color Spectrum and Migrant. The distance that making those records afforded Crescenzo means that of all the albums The Dear Hunter has made, Act IV’s soundtrack to its main character’s physical and philosophical journey is also the closest Crescenzo has come to realizing the true musical vision inside his head. 

Played by the community-based Awesöme Orchestra collective at Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios, it means the album truly is the culmination of everything that preceded it. As such, even though it’s part of a fictional narrative, it doubles up as the band’s most autobiographical album to date.

There are still two more Acts planned, as well as a graphic novel in the works, but for now, the life of the Dear Hunter – both the character and the band – is fully consumed by this newest part of the story. It’s been a long time in the waiting, but that’s precisely why the pieces have all fallen so perfectly into place. 

One listen, and you probably will be, too.