ACT III: LIFE AND DEATH

Our hero's journey continues. After he ended things with Ms. Leading, the woman he loved but couldn't bear her profession (prostitution), The Dear Hunter is seeking a way to 'mend his broken heart'. So let's go to war, that'll help, no dying there. But anyways his musical journey from here is pretty epic to say the least.

We start things off with a beautiful acapella intro that really fits the mood, "come young man where the ground is red and you need a mask to breath..."

The intro bursts into the heavy art-rocker In A Cauda Venenum which decribes why he is going to war and his immeadiate impression: I came all this way just to find love?

What It Means to Be Alone is his song of regret for leaving Ms. Leading. It really balances out the mood from the just plain heaviness of the previous track. It contains some passages that echo Act 2 but none of them are too obvious.

The Tank is a pretty ominous sounding track (the violins cause this I believe) telling of how The Dear Hunter's fellow troops are attacked by a tank and he runs to a nearby village. This track is a really epic sounding one, not even really sure how exactly.

The Poison Woman is a song about a spy for both sides of the war that our the boy meets in the village. A catchy little track, this one. Although a lot of the time being more alt than prog, it's a loveable little song.

The Thief is about a thief, (imagine that) another person the main character meets in the village. Another ominous sounding track that gets pretty intense musically.

Mustard Gas is about the village being bombed, an emotional track that once again fits the mood as The Dear Hunter is trying to escape the village.

Saved is about the boy being saved from the Mustard Gas by a fellow soldier (this is where the story starts to get tricky). This is a very lighthearted track, relief that he has been saved.

He Said He Had a Story is rocky track that is made of seemingly pure emotion. The boy meets his rescuer's father who tells the story of how he made love to a prostitute at a brothel called The Dime (sound familiar?) her name was Ms. Terri. The man is the boy's father.

This Beautiful Life is mainly about the boy processing in his mind what he has just learned. It's a soft pop tune really, one that gets stuck in your head after you hear it. One of those little buggers you just have to listen to again.

Go Get Your Gun is the men going off to battle hoping they come back alive and "for those who die please try to understand." Another catchy song that's very upbeat and did I just hear a banjo?

Son and Father seque together and almost seem like a single track. The boy's half-brother dies in battle and the father shows little or no grief. This makes the boy angry. The boy poisons his father and steals his half brother's identity. Two soft and sad tracks that have heavy and emotional refrains. I almost am brought to tears at times in this point of the album.

Life and Death is a soft little closer that has just plain beautiful lyrics. At first it's just Casey's voice and a piano but soon it bursts into the boy's emotional guilt over everything that's happened. He is leaving the war zone and going to live with his step-mother. He has now learned about life and death.

I am heavily anticipating the next Act, all three of the ones released so far downright amaze me in their beauty. I will be one of the first in line to buy act four, can't wait to see how things go with The Dear Hunter's step mom.

One of these days he will learn to love again...