listen to this

On March 3rd, Brooklyn-based The Antlers released Hospice, a full two years after their previous full-length album. Self-produced, it’s as good as anything I’ve heard all year (yes, better than Animal Collective), and well worth the wait. I’ve been playing it frequently and fully, as it should be listened. The record is completely realized over ten tracks, which unspool to tell the story of a home-care professional who falls in love with a troubled patient. A meditation on death, attempted suicide, hospital machinery, and ghosts (along with other uppers), these types of downtrodden topics could have easily fallen into an emo-shovelled trench with no hope of getting out. But they don't. Silberman, 22, The Antlers’ frontman, has a vocals style that ranges wildly. He can pull the falsettos of Jeff Buckley, with the sincerity of Wayne Coyne. This, along with the ambient background underlying his lyrics, help make the album play more like fleshed-out novel. The lyrics are haunting, and poetically so (the liner notes are particularly insightful - www.antlersmusic.com/linernotes.pdf). “Bear” and “Two” are probably the standout tracks for me, and I think it’s because they’re a bit more uplifting, at least in their arrangement (even though their subject is so foreboding): “You had a new dream/ And it was just like nightmare/ You were just a little kid/ And they cut your hair/Then they stuck you machines/ You came so close to dying/ They should have listened/ They thought that you were lying/ Daddy was an asshole/ he fucked you up/ Built the gears in your head/ Now he greases them up/ And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating/ 87 pounds! and this all bears repeating.”

It’s powerful, moving stuff, and well worth your time.

The album, in its entirety, is streaming below: