The Dear Hunter "Migrant"

I have a couple of tracks by the group Deerhunter which were interesting enough to check out new music when it appeared.  Spotted this on the release sheet and made the buy.  "Hmmm, this doesn't sound anything like the other songs," was my initial thought until I discovered my mistake, which is an easy one to make based on the name only.  Called up WPRK one day and the kid thought I was talking about Deerhoof.  "Nope, The Dear Hunter."  "Deer Tick?"  "Nevermind..."  See what I mean?  Obviously, I had to perform a bit of research to uncover the error of my ways.  I actually located the new album by Deerhunter and eventually passed on it as it turned out to be too noisy for my liking.

This Dear Hunter is essentially one guy, Casey Crescenzo, borne from a band I'd never heard of out of the Boston area.  There is a lot of familial assistance according to the credits (I've read where both of his parents were employed at the legendary Record Plant studio in CA.), plenty of engineering, and a multitude of strings, horns and keys.  My first thought was a band called The Velvet Teen, a California group that really scored with me about ten years ago and had three tremendous art-pop records (rumor is another is in the can).  What the hell, they need to be heard and here is an example for your own comparison...



Based on all the strings on Migrant, I found myself thinking ELO a couple of times and Muse another one or two, the latter because this guy's singing has a Freddy Mercury-flair like Bellamy does.  Ours and Portugal. The Man are two other bands which came to mind, most likely because I have new albums from both (posts to come, of course).  There isn't much available in the way of videos for this album, so here is a trailer for the record...



I don't normally post just straight-up image videos, but this is without a doubt the best song on the album and one of the best I've heard all year.  Judging from the evidence on the video's post, I'm not alone in feeling that way.  Over 20,600 views in five months, 197 of 198 give it a thumbs up, and a couple of comments liken it to dredg...



I guess the dredg comparison is there now that it's been mentioned.  Maybe that has helped drive sales as this album has gone as high as #57 on Billboard's Top 200, easily their best chart performance.  I've also discovered an adventurous back catalog and an interesting future project slated to begin soon.  He's composing a four-movement symphony with an orchestra in the Czech Republic and started a fund raising campaign on PledgeMusic eight days ago that is already at 87% with 52 days remaining!

I was all set to say I would be paying my ultimate compliment to an artist/band by purchasing some back catalog (which I will still do), but now I'm going to one-up myself and become pledge #825 in this future endeavor.