The Antlers – Hospice [Frenchkiss; released 8/18/2009]
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.”
“Wake”
The absolute out-of-nowhere success story of 2009 comes from The Antlers with Hospice, the 3rd release from frontman Peter Silberman, but first with a full time band. The Brooklyn-based trio was relatively unknown prior to this year, but Hospice became a web sensation largely thanks to high praise from NPR’s All Songs Considered who featured it on their weekly podcast and even named it the year’s early leader for best album. Initially self-released, the original pressing sold out before Frenchkiss eventually picked up the disc and remastered it for an August re-release.
Written during a extended period of isolation from the outside world, Silberman emerged with Hospice, a tour de force of powerful and tragic anthems that serve as an emotional journey that trumps even last year’s similar cathartic success, Bon Iver’s For Emma Forever Ago. A concept album, Hospice centers around the story of a relationship forged between a nurse and cancer patient at Sloan Kettering Cancer Ward in New York City. Every song is a chilling look at the human emotions involved when a relationship is based around such tragedy. Silberman’s vocals are an eerie falsetto that add to the heartbreak and coupled with the striking imagery found in not only the lyrics, but also in the music, an atmosphere of sorrow is created so palpable it’s truly startling. Once drawn into Hospice, and it’s impossible not to be, Silberman ensures that you will be haunted long after the 10 songs have passed much like this experience haunts his characters.
I’ve already mentioned the Brooklyn trio here, here, and here throughout A Round of Sound’s short history, but I just feel it necessary to bring up their amazing album Hospice whenever I get a chance. And well, another opportunity has presented itself as their live show from the August 21st Hospice re-release concert has been made available to download in its entirety. The show can be downloaded here, but I of course suggest picking up the LP which after the Frenchkiss re-release is finally starting garner the praise it deserves. It may be backwards to say this, but the live show doesn’t do the album justice…seriously.
Speaking of praise, Pitchfork finally got around to reviewing it and honored it with their Best New Music tag and recommended it on their ABC World News Webcast feature here. Oh, and finally, you can catch their first video supporting the album which is of “Two”, one of the best songs of the year. Phew! Ok, I promise no more Antlers news for a while…maybe
A little something I like to do every year is dole out some awards for the music up to the halfway point of the year. Nothing too detailed, just a little summary. As usual for all my lists, the only albums I’m including are albums that I own and are currently in my itunes library. And of course all this can change as I listen to albums more, but this is what I’m feeling so far for 2009. Enjoy!
Animal Collective
Best, let’s say, 7 Albums (in order of release date):
Antony & the Johnsons – The Crying Light
It’s a beautiful and affecting listen, which was to be expected from Antony Hegarty. It was the first great release of the year and has stuck around to now. I already mentioned in my 1st quarter of ’09 wrap-up…nothing more to add to that really.
Once again, check my 1Q of ’09 post that mentions this release as well. People are starting to pick up on its brilliance but it will surely gain even more of a following once Frenchkiss reissiues it this August.
The only album of these 7 that I haven’t mentioned on the blog yet. The first 6 songs are hard to top. Longstreth tones down the weird just a bit, and it gets album of the year hype…go figure.
One of my most listened to albums so far this year. It doesn’t deserve any album of the year or even top 10 talk, but I think it deserves more attention than it’s getting.
They left behind their melodic pop hooks that made Peregrine so good, and went back to their post-rock instrumental days with bland results. Best description I’ve heard was that it’s like Explosions in the Sky tried to make an Appleseed Cast album…not what I was hoping for.
I just haven’t put enough time into this one to get a reading on it. Some of it has some early Built to Spill indie feel to it, which deserves my attention.
Back what seems like ages ago, I made mention of the brilliant album Hospice by The Antlers as one of, if not my favorite albums of the year so far. What I didn’t mention is that Hospice was self-released by The Antlers which may have something to do with what little press it has been getting outside of the blog world. Well, news has surfaced that Frenchkiss Records has picked up Hospice and plans to remaster the album before re-releasing it in August. I expect a similar reaction to the release that surrounded Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago when it was re-released on Jagjaguwar last year (without the whole controversy of releasing an album in two different years that screwed around with soooooo many “Best of” lists). So, a nice little week for Frenchkiss, which as I recently noted has an album being released tomorrow that could also be one of the year’s best. Anyway, this is very cool news for The Antlers, and very well deserved. So here’s another track from Hospice as well as the two that I featured back in my original post.
Posted by Hawkins 
A Round of Sound 