The Antlers - Hospice ***

Hospice is a beautifully sad concept album that lyrically deals with the breakdown of a relationship between husband and wife as the latter is suffering with terminal cancer.  To whatever extent the albums story reflects the experiences of lead member Peter Silberman, or its references to Sylvia Plath, it is the lovingly crafted story of a husband and wife that most interests.  Rather than depict a true love, until the bitter end, fairytale romance - this is the rough, raw side of love that sometimes people are too scared to talk about.  Musically this isn't an album that drifts along with convention as the songs seem to have a life of their own.  This is what I loved the first time I first listened to this album as the songs reached out and grabbed me and left me transfixed, whether it was the ghostly Thirteen or the waltzing Shiva.


The album opens with the instrumental, Prologue, a bleak soundscape that sets the tone for the story.  It is a frozen, desolate landscape that leads into Kettering and the introduction of Peter Silberman's voice, a delicate and gentle tone that sometimes disguises the dark content of his lyrics.  His fragility makes the words hit home even harder, a philosophical husband looking out at the start of the story ("I wish I had known the first minute we met, the unpayable debt that I owed you") it is enough to make the heart ache a little.  Gentle piano accompanies the vocals until a funeral march of drums kicks in with a rising wave of feedback and guitars, adding an epic feel to the end of the song.


There are the odd moments of radio(ish) alt-pop/rock that come in the shape of Bear, an upbeat nursery rhyme of a song that masks a very personal and distressing time for the couple.  Two is the kind of song you might see in One Tree Hill as part of a moving montage.  The song builds slowly, starting with a simple two-chord guitar until a steady beat allows the piano, synths, feedback, and percussion to create a moving background to a song that documents a husband looking back on his life and realising there is no going back.


Clocking in at 52 minutes you wouldn't want this album to be any longer.  The tone and melancholic vibe of these songs as a collective don't make it an album you would play whilst entertaining the in-laws.  Hospice is best kept for a late night with a good friend, or a frosty morning stroll.


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