Antimai | The Deer Hunter | Concept Explained
This is my personal explanation of the story behind The Deer Hunter’s 2022 album, Antimai.
This album explores the post-apocalyptic world and the dystopian society that has arisen from the end of the world. Antimai is the last city on earth and is organized in a series of 8 concentric circles. Outside of the 8 rings is nothing but desolation (or at least that’s what we’re told), so the citizens of Antimai are forced to survive in the city. Each track in the album goes explains what each ring is like.
Track 1) “Ring 8 – Poverty”
- We start with the farthest ring from the center. Ring 8 houses the destitute citizens living in on the outskirts. They are hardly even part of the city as they live just on the other side of the 7th wall with nothing separating the slums from the desolate “deadzone” all around them. Here, every day is a struggle to survive.
- This is where Parser and Setv’k reside from the Cycle 8 prologue. Here the children are taken by the state at the age of 8 to serve in work camps until they are 20.
- Ring 8 is also where belief in the Indigo Child is strongest. The faith in a savior is all that keeps the people going day after day. So, they suffer quietly, waiting patiently for the Indigo Child to return and save them all.
Track 2) “Ring 7 – Industry”
- My impression is this ring is it is full of factories and sweat shops where people are worked to death. It may or may not be where the kids from Ring 8 are taken after Retrieval when they turn 8, but my guess would be it is.
- The song focuses on ring 7 being a place of punishment for those who have fallen from grace in the other sectors. Fail to make it as part of the society in the upper rings, and you’ll be dragged into ring 7 where you’ll be forced to become a “Meka-nik”—basically a worker bee who thinks nothing outside of his/her role as a cog in the industrious machine of ring 7.
- However, life can still get worse. If you get in trouble in ring 7, there’s still the threat of being cast out to ring 8. At least in ring 7 you get food, water, and shelter which is never guaranteed in ring 8.
- The lyrics follow a new arrival in ring 7 being shown around by someone familiar with the territory who gives him the lay of the land and tells him to embrace his new life as there’s no going back.
- Now, what might earn you a demotion into ring 7? Failing to fit in with society and the expectations of the other rings, acting outside the law or even toeing the line of status quo, or being a “bio-pariah” which is anyone from the upper rings who refused to or is unable to marry and procreate.
- I also have a theory that having faith in the Indigo Child will land you in ring 7 or 8. Faith in the child messiah is for those outside the influence of the god emperor XCV and any whisper of fealty toward the Child would be akin to treason and land you in one of the lower rings.
Track 3) “Ring 6 – LoTown”
- Ring 6 is responsible for growing all the food to feed the entire city. The problem is the walls separating them from ring 5 are so high, it barely allows any sunlight into the sector. Working the soil ruined by desolation is an impossible task in and of itself. But I think this goes beyond food, I think the people of ring 6 are also responsible for growing the population of workers (which making being a “bio-pariah” an ultimate sin). Because in a world where people are worked to death, there will always be a need for more slaves to fill the mouths of the rich and greedy in the upper rings.
- However difficult it may be living and working in ring 6, the people have accepted their fate and built a camaraderie between themselves and even somewhat glorified the impossible task of growing food in a barren and almost sun-less landscape. So they keep their heads down and go to work because—hey, it could always be worse! You could be in ring 7 or 8.
Track 4) “Ring 5 – Middle Class”
- Here is the first ring where the people are above living and working for survival. The sliver of freedom and flimsy happiness is enough to keep the middle class of ring 5 in line. They count their blessings and don’t dare question or think for themselves as doing so could risk what little they have.
- And this is the first ring, I think, that really holds faith in the god emperor XCV. I don’t think the Indigo Child is ever even heard of in this sector, much less whispered about.
- The people of ring 5 know they live in a world of injustice, but they don’t do anything about it because they are too busy keeping their heads above the water—just barely wealthy enough to have pride in what they have and an immense fear of where they would be without it. After all they can look down at the “refugees” in rings 6-8 and see everything they have to lose if they don’t do what is expected of them.
- Here the big focus is again on procreation. But of course, the more kids you have, the harder it is to provide for them so the further you become entrapped into the system of working with your head down and never stepping out of line.
- However, there are signs that the system is broken, there are riots and unrest, and despite the push to grow the population they are running out of space and resources. But it’s easy to ignore all this and focus on the here and now. The middle class hang on to the hope that their children might ascend through the rings through “marrying up” which seems like false promises offered to these people to keep them from straying from the path.
Track 5) “Ring 4 – Patrol”
- Love the mission impossible vibes we get on this one.
- Here we meet a patrolman—one of the law enforcers for the city. Back in the Indigo Child prologue we learned about Retrieval where children are taken from the outer rings and put into work camps. Here they also have a chance to be selected as a guard or patrolman. If you are deemed “worthy of guard” this elevates you into the fourth ring where you get to lord over all the other people in the rings below you.
- This song explores the power trip of going from being beaten down to being the one holding the whip so to speak. You can see how power corrupts as the patrolman whose POV we are seeing in this song doesn’t hesitate to enact brutality and how he feels he is so far above where he came from. It seems there is no limit to what a patrolman can do to others under the guise of “justice” and punishing the disobedient.
- But whatever power these patrolmen think they have obtained, they are still only pawns in the game. Should they refuse to do their job or become insubordinate they will be punished and/or killed.
- There is possibly a hint at the technology used in this world. Lyrics like “Well, it’s no bother, I can just forget“ if we’re taking this literally, it makes it seem like it’s possible for the patrolmen to get a memory wipe. Now this may have to do with the mysterious thing injected into Satv’k in the prologue. It seems it’s pretty routine to for this bright light symbiont-looking thing into children during Retrieval. I am so curious about what that was and if its more technological in nature or more alien-like. Hopefully the idea will be expanded up in in the next album release.
Track 6) “Ring 3 – Luxury”
- In ring 3 we see the gluttony and escapism espoused by the political and religious leaders of this ring. Like the title would suggest, they live a life of luxury and gladly step on the people propping up the world below them in order to maintain their status and lifestyle.
- The first half of the song “The Hall of the Guides” comes from the POV of the Guides who are supposed to be governing Antimai (one of whom we met in the Cycle 8 short film). During a meeting, a demagogue of the Guides gives a proud declaration of their corrupt ideas of justice.
- While part 2 “The Cream of the Crop” feels more like a drugged-out stupor of the rest of the upper class. We are seeing everything through an inebriated rose-colored lens which is how the people of this ring operate, not caring what goes on beyond the walls, only involved in the here and now and maintaining their lifestyle.
- And, okay, I have a thought. Now it’s probably not true, but I was thinking to myself how is it that these people are living in luxury and want for nothing when the city can barely produce any food at all—given that LoTown struggles to grown anything. There is a lack of food, but plenty of people. And you combine that with the push toward procreation in the lower rings and you get the answer to the question what are the people in ring three gorging themselves on? I believe their cannibals.
- Lyrics like “Sure, we’ll bring them in with a lie (Welcome!)
We could always use another tithe” - And “They’ve saved their whole lives so they can, someday
Live a little like we do for one day” - “We will pick his carcass clean”
- It makes it sound like the people in this sector bring in the “refugees” to live the life of luxury for one day before they are killed and eaten.
- Now, I ‘m probably not right about this, the lyrics I just quoted are more likely talking about people from lower rings coming to speak with their representatives in the Hall of the Guides and beg their help, but my mind jumped to cannibalism.
Track 7) “Ring 2 – Nature”
- Here in the final ring before the tower, we find mother nature has reclaimed a portion of the land. The song is told from the POV of nature itself and speaks of watching the humans destroy everything while patiently waiting for them to die out before nature reclaims the planet once again.
- Now you might be wondering, why is this ring allowed to exist uninhabited? Because it acts as an impenetrable barrier of untamed wildness. The tower where the emperor god XCV resides is cut off from the rest of the rings with this treacherous jungle of ring 2.
Track 8) “Ring 1- Tower”
He seems to be plotting something, though what his end goal is we don’t know. He already had supreme power, so that leaves us with the question: what more can he be trying to achieve?
Told from the POV of the god emperor XCV and how he believes himself above all those below him.
There is one particular lyric that really intrigues me: “And there is nothing that compares to
How good it feels to be the one to push thе domino
What’s beneath it? What’s ahead?
No mattеr, the path won’t wrap around ’til long after I’m dead”