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$12.99 CD
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THE ANTLERS
Hospice
(Frenchkiss Records)
 Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store
It was only back in March that we first brought in the Antlers' then self-released album, Hospice, on consignment. We loved the record here at the shop and so did our customers -- the album sat in our top sellers charts for several weeks. We weren't the only ones; word of mouth quickly spread about this truly stunning record over the Internet (and NPR). And the band never rested on their laurels, constantly performing locally and booking DIY tours across the country. So it's not surprising that Hospice would finally get a proper release on Frenchkiss Records, and we can only imagine that the Antlers will soon be a household name. This is what we wrote earlier this year when we featured the album in our Update.
There is a story behind this record -- a painful, slow-moving thunderstorm of a story that is so deeply personal, so close to the heart of a young man named Peter Silberman, that he couldn't keep it in any longer. He had to share it to keep from drowning in the emotion, so he cast this lifeline to the world. He had to write these songs, his fragile voice suggesting that he sings because he can barely speak, maybe because he is too beat-down tired, or maybe because he just doesn't know what to say anymore. I don't really know what the story is, the details of Silberman's pain. There is a friend dying in a hospital bed and there is love and loss, but I don't want to know all the cold facts; my guess is that soon enough I won't be able to escape the boring minutia in every blog post and magazine article about Silberman's lengthy ordeal, and the deeply moving, timeless classic of an album that came out of it.
Soon enough I imagine the details will be everywhere, because from the blunt stone of heartache that was Peter Silberman's, he has chiseled one of the finest albums we've heard in some time, and Hospice marks the coming of age of a wonderful artist. Antlers, originally a solo project, has released a handful of EPs and one album previously, and their once upbeat dream-pop echoes in the pages of Hospice, but Silberman, now with a proper band behind him, has crafted something different here that lives in its own space. Some comparisons are obvious, and fans of Sigur Ros, Antony, and Jeff Buckley will all surely sit up and take notice. Silberman's singing shares the intimate falsetto that all three employ, but even in his lower register, somewhere between a whisper and breathy tenor, you feel the need to lean in close. And the music the group wraps around that voice is both hazy and intricate, full of crackle and hum, piano and string and horn arrangements making the record swell with classic beauty while it pulses and pops to a different beat.
Silberman's vocals dip in and out of the trebly, hallucinogenic sounds, never sure if he is being cradled by the music, or bobbing for air, but there is poetry and poise in these songs, and while they were conceived in loneliness, they will not end their days that way. Hospice is the story of a young man who feels too young, too old, and simply too much, and Antlers have harnessed that pain as only true art can. [JM] |
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