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PO Today: The Dear Hunter - Antimai


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Out July 7th, preorders should start at 2pm EST today.

 

We are thrilled to formally announce our new record “Antimai”, coming out July 1st. Within the concept of “The Indigo Child”, Antimai acts as an atlas of the fictional world’s last remaining metropolis, exploring its social hierarchy from the outside in.
Today, we share our first single, and one of our collective favorites, “Ring 7 - Industry”.
We first began playing this song in late 2019, touring an unfinished version in the hopes of slowly introducing listeners to the sound of an album we’d hoped to release the following year. Having recorded a majority of our instrumentation in January and early February of 2020, we took a short break with the intent of reconvening in mid March to wrap up work.
Things evolved as they did, and the record’s future became more and more uncertain with the decreasing likelihood of a traditional promotional/touring cycle ahead. But what started as a demoralizing situation slowly metamorphosed into an amazing opportunity to revisit the record with a completely fresh perspective. And slowly, piece by piece, we completed “Antimai” without any concern of when, or if, it would ever be heard—focusing solely on making a record we wanted to listen to.
Edited by highfives
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Everything shared from Pillar Product Listings -

Milky Clear - 1500

Lava - 500 Units Pressed (400 to be sold now)

Limited Edition White Cassette(Limited to 500 copies)

Limited Edition Double LP Vinyl (Pink Smash Variant) - 500 Units Pressed in total (400 to be sold now)

Limited edition Flexi Vinyl  (Purple)

Antimai CD (Limited Edition Color)
Antimai Instrumental CD (Limited Pressing)
Antimai Cassette (Limited Edition Sage Variant)

 A__0002_Vinyl-_Milky-Clear_280x420.png?vAntimai Ring 4 BundleA__0001_Vinyl-_Pink-Smash_3ad5bbd2-0fb0-A__0000_TealFlexi_280x420.png?v=16518097 Antimai Ring 4 BundleA__0004_Antimai-Cassette-_Green_280x420. Ring-1.-Bundle_280x420.jpg?v=1651808971  Ring-4-Bundle_280x420.jpg?v=1651809713

Edited by Justinadamk
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Holy shit.  Dear Hunter haven’t done a lot for me in a decade or so, and I try not to rain on parades for upcoming releases, but… what the hell happened to this band?  As if it wasn’t yikes enough to LARP Midgar as a concept record, that first single is hot dog water.  I know they’ve always had a theatrical flare with stories woven into their lyrics, but they’ve really become a caricature of themselves.

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13 minutes ago, Derek™ said:

Holy shit.  Dear Hunter haven’t done a lot for me in a decade or so, and I try not to rain on parades for upcoming releases, but… what the hell happened to this band?  As if it wasn’t yikes enough to LARP Midgar as a concept record, that first single is hot dog water.  I know they’ve always had a theatrical flare with stories woven into their lyrics, but they’ve really become a caricature of themselves.

It’s interesting seeing the split.  I’ve been talking about this first single, concept, and trajectory with some friends today and maybe it kinda comes down to this.  
 

The Acts have a big story attached to them, but the songs are written in a way that’s just vague enough for listeners to be able to relate to the songs without even knowing there’s a bigger story at play.  The songs work as songs and the regular listener can jam to them.  The nerds can still get deep into the method if they want, but it’s not imperative.  I’d even say Acts 1-3 are more successful with this.  4 and 5 are very much storytelling, with songs that seem to exist only to finish the story.  That’s why there are weird flows through those records.

 

Antimai is a different beast altogether.  It doesn’t exist without this concept.  The first single’s lyrics use made up words that only exist in this made up world, and only to support the concept.  The average dude isn’t relating to these songs - it’s only for the concept nerds.  
 

Personally, I dig the music and will take a chance on the record.  Late TDH hasn’t really done the same things for me as the early Acts, but I’m all for giving the band chances to experiment and explore.  There are some nice, catchy licks in the song, although I wouldn’t say it’s anywhere near a commercial success type of single - no singalong chorus (or any chorus to speak of really).  But again, I’m all for supporting and seeing where they take this based on the success of the Acts.

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Everything you’ve just shared is 100% applicable to me and my relationship with Coheed & Cambria.  I dug that the story was supplemental to the music, for many years there.  I can actually still throw on their first 2-3 albums – same with Dear Hunter – and enjoy what I’m hearing.  [A bit of that may be weighed by nostalgia, but whatever.]  Taking the time to track down the comics or graphic novels and widen your understanding of the universe depicted inside of the lyrics… that was like this icing on the cake, to get a little extra mileage out of the lyrics.

For whatever reason though, I can tolerate (or even admire) that when it’s subtle.  But when it’s the centerpiece and shoved down the throat of the listener, there’s something about it that I just find unabashedly cringe.  I think it’s the genre too – despite enjoying early Dear Hunter, I really never had a stomach for “theatrical” progressive rock.  When you couple that cheese with forced concepts being name-dropped or baked straight into every song… 🤮

I won’t keep returning to this thread to shit on everyone who’s excited for this release.  It simply isn’t for me and that’s fine.  It’s not like anyone asked.  There are still people who hear nothing wrong at all with Coheed’s modern sound, which tells me that some demographic of TDH’s fanbase will presumably be into this new record.  And good for them.  It’s just wild to see how much they’ve shifted since 2006 or so, when I could confidently call them one of my favorite bands at the time.

 

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