Until the Hunter is the third studio album from Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions. It was released on November 4, 2016 and is their first album since 2009's Through the Devil Softly. It is Hope Sandoval and Colm Ó Cíosóig's first collaboration since the release of Mazzy Star's Seasons of Your Day and My Bloody Valentine's m b v in 2013.
The album features contributions from songwriters Mariee Sioux and Kurt Vile, Jim Putnam of Radar Bros., street musician and multi-instrumentalist Michael Masley, as well as Irish band Dirt Blue Gene, who also appeared on Through the Devil Softly. The album was mixed at Cauldron Studios in Dublin and mastered by Mark Chalecki in Los Angeles.
Until the Hunter is the band's first studio album since Through the Devil Softly (2009). In the years that followed, both Sandoval and Ó Cíosóig resumed touring with their original bands – Mazzy Star and My Bloody Valentine, respectively – with those two bands each releasing their first new studio albums in approximately two decades in 2013, Seasons of Your Day and m b v.
Work began on the album in 2014, with Sandoval and Ó Cíosóig composing new material in Berkeley, California. They later reconvened in Dublin, Ireland to hold recording sessions, where they were joined by Irish band Dirt Blue Gene. This band – which consists of Charles Cullen, Dave Brennan, Al Browne, Mick Whelan and Alan Montgomery – also featured on Through the Devil Softly, and performed as The Warm Inventions' backing band for its corresponding world tour until 2010.
The album was recorded in various locations, including Sandoval's Berkeley residence; as well as an unnamed college and two Martello towers in Dublin, which Ó Cíosóig would rent using Airbnb. The towers' circular shape would enhance the band's recording process, with Ó Cíosóig explaining: "Because of the circular dimensions, the reverb inside died naturally, and it had this curve; it didn't bounce around like a square box. The resonance in the towers suggested sounds that might not have been there. They brought out existing sounds more. If you have parallel walls, the reverb keeps on going, and we had a nice natural decay that let the music just breathe inside it."
The album features several guest musicians, including singer-songwriter Kurt Vile, who Sandoval invited to take part after she heard his music while shopping at a drum store in Dublin. It also features multi-instrumentalist Michael Masley performing gong and nyckelharpa on several tracks. He was asked to contribute to the album after Sandoval encountered him busking outside the BART station in Berkeley. Sandoval has said: "We walked by and heard this beautiful music. And we invited him to come over and play some of his really cool, weird sounds. He basically reinvents instruments. He has this gong, and he drills a hole in the middle of the gong and does all these crazy sounds with it. [...] He has all this weird, crazy stuff that he does to create these amazing sounds, and he tells you, 'You're never gonna hear this sound again. Nobody is going to give you this sound!' You need to Google him now. He'll blow your mind."
The band first teased the album with the single "Isn't It True" on Record Store Day 2016. Its music video, which was dedicated to Richie Lee of Acetone, was released on April 19. This music video features vintage photographs and clips that the band described as "lost and found memories". A second single, "Let Me Get There", was released on September 23 and featured Kurt Vile. On the same day, the album's track list, artwork and release date was also revealed. A video for the song, directed by Sandoval, was released in early October. "A Wonderful Seed" was released for streaming on Spotify from October 21.
The album was released on November 4 in various formats, including CD, 2× vinyl and digital download. Editions of the album sold at Rough Trade stores in the UK contained a bonus disc featuring the album's two B-sides. They also released a translucent green vinyl edition, which was limited to 700 copies. The band are planning to tour from March 2017.
Until the Hunter received widespread acclaim from critics upon release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 82, based on 7 reviews. It also holds an aggregate score of 7.5 out of 10 at AnyDecentMusic?, based on 11 reviews.
The Boston Globe praised the album for its atmospherics and production. Writer Maura Johnston singled out "Let Me Get There" for exceptional praise, describing it as a "dreamy seven-plus-minute song that could probably stretch on for double its length and not wear out its welcome." Adam Kivel of Consequence of Sound also complimented its production – specifically in relation to Sandoval's vocals – by writing that the music envelops her vocals in "the many shades of gray between subtle warmth and sighing melancholy." The Line of Best Fit described it an immersive and rewarding record which proved that side projects could be more than "rock star folly", awarding the album 7.5 out of 10. Guy Oddy of The Arts Desk gave the album a perfect score, calling it "a thing of some considerable beauty", and opined: "The [album's] melancholy air often suggests a sultry siren from a David Lynch film fronting a Loaded-era The Velvet Underground with it's brittle and unsettling wistfulness." Tim Sendra of AllMusic praised the album for its diversity, expansive arrangements and the "increased number of catchy songs [compared to the band's previous albums]." He summarized by writing: "Seven years is a long time to wait between albums, but if that's how long it takes to make the album as good as this is, then the wait was worth it."
musicOMH compared Until the Hunter to the work of Sandoval's and Ó Cíosóig's previous bands, contending that it "impresses with the bare minimum from start to finish. How they pack so much emotion and feel into so little is nothing short of magical." BrooklynVegan also compared it to Seasons of Your Day, and suggested that both albums had a timeless quality, explaining: "That contrast between having one foot in the very old and one in the very new is part of why the music remains so essential. [Both albums feel] classic and fresh at the same time."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Hunter
