The Antlers - Hospice | Indie Arto

The Antlers - Hospice

What do you get when a twenty three year old indie musician isolates himself from both friends and family, not in Alaska or the Nevada, but in Brooklyn, New York? For starters you will either get an extreme failure or a massive success and the latter is what Peter Silberman managed to achieve when he started the solo project, the Antlers. Originally Peter made music under his own name but that that in doing so, a musician puts too much of himself out there, in public and when things get bad, it will always be associated with your name. So after recruiting two more band members Lerner and Cicci, Silberman decided on the name, The Antlers, which was inspired by a song called Antlers. Silberman has commented that the name just sort of came and once it was there, it grew on them and now it just sorta fits. The Antlers have recorded three previous studio albums and two EP’s, the first of the albums was still recorded under Silberman’s own name. The album “Hospice” was first released independently by the band in March 2009 and after the second release, they signed to French Kiss Records, who have released a remastered version of the album on 18 August 2009.

The Album Hospice is a collection of songs which Silberman referred to as “an elegy for his planned disappearance”. The album features a storyline which tells the story of a young man losing a loved one to cancer and having to witness her death first hand. The album starts with an instrumental prologue and ends in a epilogue. Silberman manages to put a lot of himself into this album and it can only be classified as an emotional experience. On the first listen of this album I struggled to choke back tears as I listened to songs such as Bear, Kettering and Epilogue. The track Bear tells of a couple who experience an unplanned pregnancy, then later getting an abortion, this tears them apart emotionally and later it resulted in them growing apart. The album is filled with beautiful instruments like a harp, the accordion, trumpets, banjo, and the harmonica. Sharon Van Etten performs vocals in the track Thirteen which is followed by the melodically enticing track called Two. Although this is a sad album, it is in no way a depressing album, through all the tragedies, regret and shattered hope, light at the end of the tunnel never seems too far away. Hospice is one of the best albums of the year and a must for each and every indie enthusiast.