As I’ve noted before, The Dear Hunter seem to be all about going big when it comes to announcements. Well, they’ve managed to drop another huge round of bombs today, including a new unsurprisingly epic 9-minute track, details on the heavily-anticipated Act IV: Rebirth In Reprise (the stunning cover art for it is above), and a tour in the fall right on the heels of their huge tour playing Act II and Act III. Get literally ALL the info after the jump!
The track, “A Night on the Town,” has pretty much every single thing Casey Crescenzo and the band have become known for and have accomplished in the past decade. Huge, proggy riffs? Check. Orchestral interludes and delicate string/wind arrangements? Check. Poppy and shimmery choruses and climaxes that make you want to shout at the top of your lungs? Check and check. Callbacks to different parts of all the Acts? Check, check, annnnnnd, check. Superfans might recognize sections of the track from the untitled bonus track off of Act III, though it’s been significantly upgraded and expanded here. To my knowledge though this is the single longest track the band has put out to date [edit: scratch that, second-longest track after the 9 1/2 minutes that are “The Lake and the River”], and it more than earns its hefty runtime. To those fans who love everything the band have put out but maybe were just a little bit concerned about the more straightforward poppiness of some of their more recent output (coughthis guy herecough), this track should be a humongous reassurance. This track is the perfect blend of complexity and accessibility that Casey excels at, and it certainly bodes well for Act IV to be another huge piece of The Dear Hunter canon.
I also feel the need to talk about that cover art because wow. The tree imagery that has been symbolic of the Acts series as a whole is still present, but it is not the focus. Instead we have a somewhat ominous character wearing a bird mask and carrying around a cross, possibly emblematic of the “Pimp/Priest” character who plays a major role in the stories of the first two Acts. Based on the imagery and the song titles (tracklist below), it certainly appears that our protagonist will be returning back to “The City” from his war-torn trip abroad and headed straight into confrontation with the more insidious parts of the place he ran away from.
Moving on, the band have also assembled an incredibly impressive North American tour in support of the new album. They’ll be bringing Heavy Blog darlings CHON and Gates with them, both of which are rather unexpected choices but make sense. Tour dates are below, as is the tracklist for Act IV.
Act IV: Rebirth In Reprise Tracklist
- Rebirth
- The Old Haunt
- Waves
- At the End of the Earth
- Remembered
- A Night On the Town
- Is There Anybody Here?
- The Squeaky Wheel
- The Bitter Suite IV and V: The Congregation and The Sermon in the Silt
- The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon
- King of Swords (Reversed)
- If All Goes Well
- The Line
- Wait
- Ouroboros
The album comes out September 4, and you can pre-order the album and other goods here.
-NC