Album Review: The Fox & the Hunt

by H.Murray, Published April 1, 2020

It is the end of March, and I'm writing this during the coronavirus self-distancing era, and I am stuck in my house for 23 hours per day. The one hour (give or take) that I go outside is so my dog can get a little exercise, relieve herself, and take in a few smells from the neighborhood. We spend this time meandering through the beautiful streets of Los Angeles near Griffith Observatory. For this brief respite from my small living space, the sun shines, the birds chirp, and just stepping outside feels more like an adventure than it has ever felt before. 

When you're walking for no other reason than to walk, and no specific destination, the soundtrack of what you hear colors your environment more vibrantly than ever before. The music that you choose is as much of an adventure as the places themselves.

I tell you this to provide a little context about where I'm at as I review The Fox & The Hunt in these bizarre and uncertain times. This album feels more like a soundtrack without a movie than a traditional album. My first several listenings happened at home, while I baked (and consequently ruined) scones, dusted every bookshelf I own and sorted through my entire music collection. Every time I turned this music on, I would check my phone to see if I was missing a film. I looked up the album online to see if there was poetry or words to accompany the music. But no, nothing. It remains a mystery to me.

So it appears that Casey Crescenzo and Brian Adam McCune have written and orchestrated the soundtrack to my life in solitude. All of my actions are scored with a full orchestra performed by Awesöme Orchestra and led by David Möschler. I feel compelled to break into dance as I walk down the boulevards that lead into Griffith Park and dance around the light posts on the thin, winding roads that meander through the surrounding hills. When I look back on this strange period of isolation more than anything, I will remember how my life became a musical dance routine for one, with no audience.

Before starting this review, I was not familiar with the music of The Dear Hunter or Casey Crescenzo. According to Wikipedia, they are classified as an American Progressive Rock Band from Providence, Rhode Island. I listened to some of their enormous back catalog (The Dear Hunter has seven other full-length albums, several live albums, and fourteen EPs). Their style is full of variety, vocals, instrumentation, and orchestration. Several of the tracks on The Fox & The Hunt either directly quote previously released music or mimic it closely. I know this isn't a review of the band, but I'm glad that I had the opportunity to explore some of their previous sounds.

On The Fox & The Hunt, some of the music is whimsical and full of delight, reminiscent, at least for me, of scenes from the film Amélie, and some calls to mind the burlesque stylings of Gogol Bordello and the Dresden Dolls. The music then transforms into an entirely new scene and conjures memories inspired by completely different films and musicians. The orchestration is broad and dynamic. I particularly appreciate the mix when the harp and/or keys are in the foreground. There is something about this blend that feels the way I wish bougainvillea smelled.

“Mercy in a Merciless Place” begins with a beguiling oboe solo that opens into a somber and unsettling track that includes plenty of well-placed dissonances yet is still full of whimsy. I love the interjecting tone of the trumpet on this track. It sits right on the edge of blaring and grotesque. The clarinet and subsequent Klezmer-like stylings in “Far Too Many Waves to Try” is one of my favorite moments on the album. The ensuing section feels like a chase scene straight out of Home Alone (which, I am). It doesn’t last long before the music morphs into a pastoral interlude led by the flutes and harp as if we turned a corner on a movie set and landed in someone else's scene. “I traveled too far from the River's Side” has the most joyous big band section that folds into a foreboding texture of strings and woodwinds. Actually, the more I describe my experience with this album, the more I like it. The music is so descriptive that it feels like I'm writing the script in real-time.

Listen to this while you burn your scones, clean your house, walk your dog, or do whatever it is that fills your COVID-19 quarantine time. It will charm and delight, make your daily life at least feel like a movie we should all put in our Netflix cue, and cause you to put a little bit of fancy footwork into your regular walking step.

The album is available for purchase from the band's website on Vinyl and streaming on Spotify.