The Musical Concern
The Dear Hunter
Act III: Life and Death
(June 23, 2009 -- Triple Crown Recordings)

Caveat #1: Unless you are Guided By Voices please do not attempt more than eleven tracks. In fact, every cut beyond ten compounds the odds of you coming off as a self-pleasuring jellyfish awash in his own doings.

Caveat #2: The Beach Boys are history. They were a pop act with sporadic artistic aspirations, but a consistent drift toward novelty led to mediocrity. Your compositions will not thrive because you think Beach Boy vocals are cool.

Caveat #3: Concept albums are usually for schmucks. Even if you’re a jazz legend (see Digging Up Bones, below), the concept needs –really needs – to end on the final cut. (Google “ZZ Top Trilogy,” check out the earth-shattering tunes that littered that snatch of vinyl.)

Caveat #4: Freddie Mercury was one of the best vocalists in rock history. If you must, channel his voice, but please don’t turn tail mid-stride and revert to prog-emo hollering.

I would like to like this record; there’s so much ambition and musical ability at play, how could you not be drawn to it? The third recording in what is to be a collection of six. A madly prolific songwriter with a vision, who not only conceptualizes a grand, musical monstrosity, but also finds the players to pull it off.

The Dear Hunter is both a band and a boy. The band explores the life of the boy.

Imagine a writer, the best writer, your favorite writer, attempting to traverse six volumes of “the life of a boy”… … …

Okay, I’ve been snarky enough and negative enough, but I do enjoy elements of this record. At some point, perhaps in the next century, The Dear Hunter may distill all these improbable spirits and deliver a masterpiece. (Songs that peak my suspicion are in this week’s Soundtrack To Wednesday. Player in the sidebar.)

Caveat # 5: Never, ever, for as long as you breathe, title your album…(pretentious pause)…Life and Death.

JH