The Dear Hunter recently released the new album, Sunya. Continuing the sonic universe they first unveiled on 2022’s Antimai, Sunya finds the band leaning into synth textures and tightly wound grooves, drawing as heavily from jazz and funk as from progressive rock.
The band has now shared a video for the track “The Glass Desert III – The Plains”.
The band has not shared much behind the meaning of the album, but along with this video, they shared a post on social media with some explanation from singer/songwriter Casey Crescenzo:
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a music video that simply shows the band without any surrounding theatrics. With all of the ambitious, lore-driven goals I’ve signed us up for, it can be easy to overlook that at its core, this group is just friends making music we love. This video was created with that in mind. To bring it to life, we spent one of the first sunny days of the year in front of a green screen. There has been a lot of fun theorizing about this record—the narrative, the character—but while that’s something I’ve always enjoyed watching and occasionally engaging with, it feels important to offer a bit more context.
This album has no focal character. It has no narrative. The Indigo Child is a different approach to conceptual music than what we explored with The Acts, just as The Color Spectrum diverged after Act III. Sonically, this is the music of The Indigo Child. Between Antimai and Sunya, you now have the sound of a world that can exist in your mind. Lyrically, these albums approach that world from two different but complementary perspectives: one outward-facing, centered on communities within a societal hierarchy, and the other inward-facing, centered on your experience of the world around you. You are the character in this story.
The events referenced throughout are the narrative: the realization that you exist within a hostile world stripped of its physical and metaphysical resources; the presence of others who believe their survival may depend on your harm; the forced gamble of capitalism; the misplaced idolatry of those who came before you; the fear of confronting yourself at your most fundamental level; the need to move forward with only yourself as compass and commander; and the disorientation of feeling directionless.
And ultimately, the understanding that what you are chasing—an answer to all the questions you’ve gathered along the way—may already exist within you, shaped by everything you’ve endured. These are my experiences, and they are yours. Don’t search the lyrics for a narrative that explains the record. Look inward and you’ll find it there. I promise there is something beautiful waiting for you.”
SUNYA tracklisting:
The Wasteland – 7:16
Marauders – 3:26
The Bazaareteria 5:01
The Glass Desert I – Giants 5:18
The Glass Desert II – Cliffs and Stormlands 7:27
The Glass Desert III – The Plains 5:42
Sunya – 8:03
Order the album here: https://vyd.co/Sunya.
Add comment