two bad decisions don’t divide to cancel out
Back in 2009, The Antlers released Hospice, one of the darkest, yet most stunning records of the year — possibly the decade. Initially just some solo bedroom recordings by frontman Peter Silberman, Hospice quickly started to take on a life of its own. Lyrically, the songs tied together to tell the story of a complicated relationship between a hospice worker and their terminally ill patient. Silberman, who wrote the album after a period of intense social isolation (in Manhattan, of all places), has been hesitant to reveal exactly how autobiographical Hospice was, meaning we can basically assume that it was pretty damn autobiographical. The kind of emotion that you hear in songs like “Kettering” and “Two” just can’t be faked.
mp3: The Antlers - Kettering from Hospice
mp3: The Antlers - Two from Hospice
Fast forward two years, and The Antlers have just re-emerged with their much-anticipated fourth record, Burst Apart. I’d been endlessly replaying the track “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” for weeks, holding onto the hope that the rest of the album would be just as good and not suffer the fate of the dreaded sophomore slump. Now, you have to understand that The Antlers are one of those bands that I find it really difficult to write about — their music makes me feel so damn much that I begin to think I feel nothing at all. I become numb. Unable to form words or coherent sentences. Frozen by beauty. If you’ve ever tried writing about music, you know what I’m talking about. In these circumstances, sometimes all that you can manage to say is “you simply must listen to this”.
Case in point:
mp3: The Antlers - I Don’t Want Love from Burst Apart
mp3: The Antlers - Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out from Burst Apart
