Context – waiting for emails

This album seems a bit more focused than Act I, but I don’t know if that’s because I had a bit more context going into this album than I did yesterday.  This seems less all over the place, with more songs fitting within the same “genre”, whatever that means when it comes to The Dear Hunter.

If I allow myself to complain (why go forth and let your views be known, good sir!), my biggest gripe with this album is the running time–1:17.  We’re approaching movie levels of story crammed into a non-visual medium, which is a far cry from the tight ~40 minutes of Act I.  It got in, made it’s point, and left, and I was hoping the rest of the series would follow suit.  Apparently not, said The Dear Hunter as they drag this on.

Comparing this to a movie is sometimes apt as tracks like “The Bitter Suite 1 and 2: Meeting Ms. Leading and Through the Dime” are downright filmic in their delivery, and moments like this are what I look forward to from The Dear Hunter.  Their ability to evoke a scene in all it’s hazy detail is something I’m not used to in music.  Music often evokes emotions or bursts of movement, but The Dear Hunter implants images hidden behind a fog, begging to be cleared away to better see the story at hand.  I still have no idea about what’s going on in the story of this–I tried to look into it a little but there’s even less here than there is about Coheed’s The Amory Wars (I know the information is out there and I could just read the comics but I’m the standard-bearer of the Cult of Wikipedia, so I demand my stories in Wiki-form).

I’m hoping Act III sees a return to Act I in terms of scope but keeps it as tight as Act II without dragging on as long.  Overall though I’m enjoying this much more than I thought I would, which has been a pleasant surprise to me.  Not that I expected to hate them, but it’s always good when a thing exceeds your expectations.