The Antlers "Hospice" Album Review

By Matthew Kantor

Lou Reed put it bluntly when he sang, “There’s a bit of magic in everything/ and then some loss to even things out.”The Antlers’ Hospice documents Peter Silberman’s struggle with similar conclusions. The group itself is a new idea given that The Antlers started out with Silberman prolifically recording material on his own and will make the live transition on March 5 at Union Hall, to play a set of dense, ambitious Silberman compositions from an album deep in concept and theme. Hospice takes on the lofty topics of loss and recovery as they relate to death, age and destructive relationships.The lyrics and music find spaces both literal and abstract to develop these ideas, resulting in an album of constant depth. The sound is consistent with the alternately hopeful and disenchanted pop of modern icons like Arcade Fire and In Rainbows-era Radiohead. It may hit or miss on this level, but the bandmembers deserve recognition for the catchy, delicate moments they execute well. A shoegaze influence also permeates Hospice, with drones and backdrop noise underscoring Silberman’s lyrical tension. Amidst the expected sounds of guitar and percussion effectively combining on many of Hospice’s better songs, Silberman’s soft whisper grows expansive. Suddenly though, unidentifiable instrumentation comes to the forefront, scary and uncertain in its tone.The nod to dream pop’s dark underbelly gives the Antlers an identity of its own and a distinct element upon which to build. Silberman’s lyrics are self-consciously literary and deeply personal but somehow lack pretension.Thus the inevitable self-involvement of singer-songwriterbased music becomes accessible.The band gets too self-conscious only when it employs horns, intimating the presence of another grand icon in Neutral Milk Hotel. Often, trumpets pop out of an effortless mix to betray the honest vulnerability of the music that provides their setting, sounding a little too sad and tentative. When The Antlers miss on this though, it simultaneously speaks well of the intimate, personal nature of Silberman’s songwriting, wherein anything inconsistent with its easy expression sounds out of place. As a newly solidified group,The Antlers stands to refine its execution of his vision as it moves forward, his place in the one man, fourtrack continuum remaining as the foundation. Hospice overall is a step toward the upper echelon of bands both critically lauded and that connect with listeners on a sincere, emotional level.Those with a low tolerance for pathos in their pop might take solace in the facet that Hospice refrains from trite answers to its difficult questions.The album states that when something is irretrievably lost, the consequences are uncertain. Silberman and his band take refuge in their music though, hopeful that redemption is in the expression of loss itself. Hospice is ultimately optimistic due to this feeling and also in that it displays talent that may resonate in time alongside the indie-styled pop heroes of its damaged but determined style.

Source : http://www.nypress.com/article-19483-brooklyn%E2%80%99s-antlers-aim-loss-toward-the-stars.html