The Dear Hunter

Black [EP] (2011)

Brian Shultz

Out of the nine EPs comprising the Dear Hunter's ambitious project, The Color Spectrum, Black might be, well, the darkest. That's probably an obvious scenario. Less predictable is how the man at the center of the project, Casey Crescenzo, chooses to operate within the confines of such an achromat.

If one judges by the opening track of the four, "Never Forgive Never Forget," it's that Crescenzo takes industrial-tinged, heavily electronic textures (a bit like Nine Inch Nails), then delivers vocals overtop in the verses with a cocksure twang reminiscent of Colour Revolt. The chorus is pretty standard Dear Hunter, though, with Crescenzo howling operatically.

"Filth and Squalor" is the shortest and catchiest, with a certain snarl to Crescenzo's voice you only get in a few select songs in the Spectrum. The hooks in this one ("I always knew that the damned would inherit the earth / As soon as they'd learn to speak / We would be suffering.") and the more stiff, almost sinisterly monotone chorus of "Take More Than You Need," the latter surrounded by both fuzzy and spacey, darkly kaleidoscopic synths, stand out the hardest on the EP.

There's more of a caustic, static feel to the guitars and programming in these tracks that makes Black one of the best of the bunch in Crescenzo's The Color Spectrum. If you're looking to pick and choose from the individual styles Crescenzo lays out across his project, this is a pretty good starting point (which is probably why it's first in The Complete Collection track listing).