Senior Hospice Care

Hospice [Vinyl]

Description

Beginning three years ago as a singer-songwriting project for PETER SILBERMAN, The Antlers have since expanded into a full three-piece, including powerhouse drummer Michael Lerner and the layer-lathering, multi-instrumentalist, Darby Cicci. Appropriately enough, "Hospice?s ten distinct chapters resonate on debilitating sonic and lyrical levels, from the hypnotic harp and tension-ratcheting build of "Two" to the singor- sink choruses of "Bear" and the speaker-rattling peaks of "Sylvia". Mastered by GREG CALBI who has worked with SONIC YOUTH, GRIZZLY BEAR, MGMT and PASSION PIT amongst many more, the sound on the album is hauntingly beautiful and the album will no doubt be heavily featured on many best of ?09 lists.

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-08-06
Summary: "Say what you will, but "Hospice" brought me to tears."

Recipe for Enjoying "Hospice" by The Antlers


2 Quiet evenings at home to ensure unbridled attention
1 Pair of headphones to soak in the haze-drenched melodies
2 Functioning ears to place the headphones on
1 Recording of the heartbreaking, uplifting, and haunting album called "Hospice" by The Antlers

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Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2010-03-04
Summary: "Hospice"

I bought this album because it was given high ratings and Amazon had a sale. I didn't enjoy much of it. The lead vocalist is rather annoying, and most of the album is a strange mix of feedback from guitars or synthetic noise dragged for minutes at a time. Maybe it grows on you, or you have to be into that kind of mindless noise, but I can't stand it for long before wanting to listen to something else.

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Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2010-02-28
Summary: "Intensive care VIP lounge"

Hmmmm ... Uhh? ... Oh, ah-hurm-hehm! ... I must have fallen asleep there. ((YAWN!)) We were in the middle of something and then I just up and nodded right off, didn't I? That was rather rude of me.

Excuse me for not remembering, dear Reader, but what were we talking about?

Right, I can hear something now. I was in the middle of discussing this thorazine-induced, comatose-disco pairing of Antony Hegarty and Sigur Ros. I didn't even realize anything was playing. I don't even remember hitting "play." It just kind of snuck up on me out of nowhere, like a mystery track dragged out of hiding. What is that cacophony? Is somebody trying to adjust their radio dial? It's not working, let me tell you. This is what it must sound like to a computer when it shuffles off its mortal coils.

If one were to tape the sound of a washing machine, play it back speeded up while recording it again, then dub staggered layers of varying speeds into one big mix -- then grab some punk college kid who doesn't quite yet fill out his britches, shake him and squeeze him as he tries to mimic a mockingbird, you might be able to put out something almost as good as this miscarriage of empiricism.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-02-13
Summary: "wow, this is worth listening to"

This album is incredible. If you're into bands that create an atmosphere and build up to a climax in a lot of their songs, then this is the album for you. It is one of the greatest concept albums I've ever listened to, the music fits so well with the setting. More importantly, it is one of the greatest albums of any kind that I have listened to. You can listen to these songs over and over and over again and they just don't grow old. I have to see these guys live, and I really hope future albums live up to the standards they set for themselves with this one.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-02-01
Summary: ""Sylvia, get your head out of the oven.""

I tend not to get too emotionally affected by music, mostly because I usually ignore lyrics unless they're especially clever, and well, a lot of musicians don't try that hard. But it's difficult to pay attention to Hospice at all and not get hit by it. It figures that only a couple weeks after I wrote a "best of 2009" list which featured nothing that made a huge impact on me, I'd hear an album as gripping as anything in recent memory. The music itself is only part of the equation, and you can't talk about Hospice without mentioning its origins. From what I can tell it's more or less the true story of the singer falling in love with a terminal bone cancer patient at the hospital where he worked. You can probably guess how well that works out.

Despite the simple honesty of the lyrics, they never really hit you over the head with the message, and it's easy to ignore the content if you just want to hear a nice mix of shoegazing post-rock and indie folkiness (why isn't this a more popular combination?), though if you do you're not giving it a fair chance to do everything it can. Some people probably wouldn't want to hear an album that would only depress the hell out of them, and that's fine. But it's one of the more powerful listening experiences I've had in a while.

Despite the sorrow of the words and the sincerity with which they're sung, it wouldn't work if the music was bad, and fortunately it's not. There's a fair amount of time spent without much happening beyond ambient noise, and it's difficult to love every moment when it feels like you're being pulled out of the flow a bit. There's a push and pull with the general sound as it goes between a strumming guitar and louder noise elements, and it could have gotten bogged down in its own seriousness. Luckily it's catchy enough in places to just be enjoyable to listen to, even while they're playing songs about abortion and knowing that someone you love is dying. I don't want to name individual tracks, because it really should be experienced as a full album, and it all runs together like one long piece of music. If you just want a taste though, it's okay to look up the music video for "Two". I'm definitely interested in seeing what this group does next now that this story has been told.