{"id":45550,"date":"2019-02-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/revival-ep\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:09","slug":"revival-ep","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/revival-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"Revival (EP)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Usually backstory functions as fuel for art\u2014except when backstory and art are one and the same.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Robert Hunter was an aspiring singer-songwriter with a pair of well-received EPs (<i><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/outta-my-mind-ep\/\">Outta My Mind<\/a><\/i> and <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/afterglow-ep\/\"><i>Afterglow<\/i><\/a>) under his belt and a feeling he might be on the edge of a breakthrough when he and his wife Becky received devastating news: at just 28, she had an aggressive and unusually hard-to-treat form of cancer. They spent a lot of time over the ensuing months of treatments talking about the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">At Becky\u2019s urging, they seized the moment. Hunter set about finishing and publishing his debut novel <i>Relapse<\/i>, finishing and issuing his third EP <i>Revival<\/i>, and setting off on the now yearlong \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.roberthuntermusic.net\/\">Relapse and Revival<\/a>\u201d tour, which has seen him giving readings and playing tunes solo acoustic in bookstores all across the country. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">All across the country, that he\u2019s touring in a motorhome. With Becky. Who\u2019s now in remission. So, yeah, backstory and art are pretty much inextricable in this case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Like the two EPs that preceded it, <i>Revival<\/i> features five songs, all strong alt-rock numbers featuring ringing electric leads over propulsive acoustic rhythm guitar and washes of warm Hammond organ inside a classicist, radio-friendly approach. Opener \u201cNoise\u201d showcases one of Hunter\u2019s duskier lead vocals, adding a bit of Mellencamp to his more typical \u201990s alt-rock Matchbox Twenty sound (the latter point of reference feeling somewhat inevitable given that Hunter is Rob Thomas\u2019s long-lost vocal twin brother). Hooky and immediately appealing, the lyric feels autobiographical, getting the band together to hit the road because \u201cWe\u2019re good at the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cGravity Hill\u201d is a more somber number with violin adding pathos as Hunter tries to figure out what everything that\u2019s happened all means. Hunter gets a steady flow going on the verses, not quite rapping but pushing the velocity of his words even as the music holds a slow, steady tension behind him. \u201cToo close to call, relapse or revival\u201d he declares while asking \u201cDid I get lost because I just can\u2019t read the signs?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cLove Letters\u201d is bigger and bolder, with a surging push and pull to the choruses, building toward this EP\u2019s crescendo, the propulsive anthem \u201cHigh Hopes.\u201d \u201cHere we go, so fast and slow \/ Where this all ends, nobody knows\u201d sings Hunter as a driving guitar figure urges him onward. \u201cLife is just a big dream \/ But you were my first high hope\u201d he declares, the context making his subject obvious as the chorus hook sinks in deep. \u201cDislocated\u201d winds things back down with a gentler, airier, more introspective number, a moment of clarity after a major bender. <\/p>\n<p>    Insert here if you will all due props to the players and producer who contributed to this EP; I\u2019d love to name them, but it seems the rush to get this EP out left us with nothing more than song names and run times to go on. Like <i>Afterglow<\/i> before it, <i>Revival<\/i> features a rich full-band sound with crisp edges and plenty of space and dimension, another impressive collection from the pen and voice of resilient troubadour Robert Hunter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9901],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45550","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-robert-hunter","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45550"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}