Thoughts on Act III?

I have only vague ideas about the narrative in Act III, and the bits I do know of feel very...bizarre. I've avoided reading a full description, since I want to try and piece it together myself as best I can, but from what I do know, he finds both his half-brother and father out in the middle of war...? And he takes his half-brother's identity for some reason? And he kills his father so the father won't tell. Ok. The chances of him meeting both his half-brother and father at war seem astronomical, so I have a little trouble buying that. Not sure I'm a fan of that story element, unless there's some reason I'm missing that all three of them would be fighting in the same general area of the same war.

In that second point, I really cannot disagree enough, about Act II specifically. Smiling Swine jumps perfectly into Evicted, and Evicted has a similar enough musical style to everything preceding it that it feels like a fitting puzzle piece. And Blood of the Rose... I can't imagine the album without it. More specifically, I can't imagine Red Hands without it. Red Hands gets an enormous chunk of its power from the ominous vibe Blood of the Rose sets up, and the songs flow together perfectly because of that. I think Act II is possibly the most cohesive album of all the Acts, and possibly the best.

Also, it's less about the songs on Act III themselves and more how they're stitched together. A lot of times it doesn't feel natural the way the tracks progress; it feels like "oh, here's another song now I guess". Act II and Act IV feel much more like a musical journey. Hell, Act IV's style feels like a refined version of Act III's; that album flows smoothly, while still having the more straightforward musical style Act III aimed for.

/r/TheDearHunter Thread Parent