This review is going to be unfair but it's not my fault. It's The Dear Hunter's fault for releasing Antimai, an album I am comfortable calling one of the best progressive rock albums of all time. Now, the band are attempting that most slippery of magical acts: following up on such a magnificent release. As a result, Sunya is burdened under the yolk of comparison and it really doesn't help if we pretend that that's not the case. So, let's instead embrace that from the get go. Yes, Sunya is not Antimai. It doesn't feel as natural or as seamlessly put together. Its highs are not as high and its grooves are not as groovy. And yet, it is a good album, perhaps even very good. And, most importantly perhaps, it is not an echo. The worst thing for Sunya would have been to be an imitation, a reproduction. Instead, for all its flaws, it is its own release and that is good indeed.
Let's start by examining the less obvious elements of my criticism above. What do I mean when I say that Sunya is not as "natural" as Antimai? Both albums are concepts album, meaning that there is some sort of relationship between the lyrical content of the album and its music. Both try to convey a story and, more importantly, a series of themes. We don't listen to (most) concept albums for the story itself, like we do when we read a book. Instead, we want the concept to communicate themes to us, like loss, triumph, power, rebellion, etc. Antimai does this with exceptional agility; the harmony between ideas and their parallel sounds is perhaps that album's greatest merit. Not so with Sunya. The album feels more intentional, calling its shots more clearly, for lack of a better metaphor. The musical themes sometimes repeat because they are forced to repeat as their theme is introduced or revisited.
"The Wasteland", the opening track of the album, is perhaps the best example. It's entire last two minutes, where the main musical themes of the album are repeated on in a slower and slower mode, feels redundant. Nothing much gets added to the ideas during this section and it feels like an interlude or an intro, something that would have worked as as warm up but not as a cool down. These moments, of needless garnish and excessive time spent on a sound, recur throughout the album, turning its relatively short runtime into something that feels much weightier. Again, unlike Antimai which is seven minutes longer but feels much lighter and more consumable.
And yet. The sounds themselves and compositional ideas, overwrought at times as they might be, are sound (is this the worst pun I've ever written?) That somewhat weak outro feeds into "Marauders", which has become one of my favorite The Dear Hunter songs. It has everything we love about the band and then some, with great vocals, excellent use of the vocoder, groovy synths, and a more effortless epic and buoyant feeling to it. There's also the closing, eponymous track which is a sweeping and moving conclusion to the album, replete with the beautiful string arrangements we have come to expect from the band. And there are many more such great moments on the album, musically pleasing and, as I mentioned above, fortunately different than Antimai. They are more sweeping, more expansive, and more grandiose, orchestral and flowery in the best of ways.
So, at the outset, we repeat our judgement: Sunya is a good album and, if it was released before Antimai, might have been viewed as gestational, as The Dear Hunter figuring out this new era or mode of expression. As it stands, it does not rise to the heights of Antimai but it has peaks of its own. It's unfair to compare it to that album and yet, it will be compared to it by everyone so we might as well lean into it. Or must we? Perhaps with time, the connection between the two albums will recede and we will be able to enjoy Sunya for what it is: a good, solid, conceptual progressive rock with fine orchestras, great synths tones, and a pleasing story of overcoming and becoming. Only time will tell.