for Gigwise.com
Until Arcade Fire bother to get in the studio and record another album of epic melodrama it seems we're going to have to make do with scrabbling around in the dust that they have left behind and hoovering up those influenced by the Canadian Funeral dwellers. Luckily for us the dust contains great bands like The Antlers.
Noah and The Whale set the bar high in 2009 by channelling Win Butler et al and now we have The Antlers who combine the loner confinement heartbreak of Bon Iver with the bombastic volume of Arcade Fire in a fragile but explosive cocktail. The band originally started as a solo project for singer Peter Silberman when he moved in to a Brooklyn (where else?) apartment to get away from his friends and family. Whilst locked away in his apartment he wrote the majority of the album 'Hospice', a concept album about illness, dysfunction and death. Eventually the intensity of everything got too much for Silberman and he recruited a band of like minded misery guts to help him record 'Hospice' and play it live.
Despite the band citing Sylvia Plath as an influence (Apparently not much of a disco diva) The Antlers have an uplifting quality to them and 'Hospice' is genuinely joyous at times. The fact that Silberman has found the strength in his solitude to craft these massive pop songs is a testament to his ability and with songs as good as 'Bear' and 'Two' in their arsenal there is no reason this band couldn't go on to emulate the recent success of Fleet Foxes or more pertinently Grizzly Bear. The Antlers are certainly a big deal in America where 'Hospice' was originally released independently but was soon snapped up by the Les Savy Fav owned label Frenchkiss as the band, by their own admission couldn't cope with the requests. Due to popular demand the album is now on its second re-release and continues to grow in hype and popularity.
The Antlers tour the UK throughout November . 'Hospice' is available to buy now.
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