Review Summary: "I wish I would've known in that first minute we met, the unpayable debt that I owed you."
Sometimes the cosmos speaks to us in odd and unexpected means. For me, this was
Hospice. When I first picked up the record in 2010, I was in an negative place in my life. I was 16, knee deep in a depression, juggling 40 hours of school and 40 hours of work a week, helping to pay my family's bills for a period of time. As if it couldn't come at a worse time, after Christmas I found out I was pregnant. So frightened i'd be seen as a failure, I didn't tell a soul and quietly fell into my own solitary universe, with me, my thoughts, and an iPod. As I fell off the face of the earth, Peter Silberman was still there, with his voice like silk, and a euphoric indie guitar backing him. I spent a great many nights plagued with chronic insomnia, unending panic, and soaking in the sounds of The Antlers. Three years later, my daughter is my miniature me, and the best thing to have ever walked into my life. I can see Silberman in an apartment, alone and in a cold spot in his life as I have been before- and I wonder if
Hospice healed him as much as it did me.
I was pulled in by second track "Kettering". The summary of what was to come from the album: a sorrow from a loved one in a hospital, rejected by them but staying anyway, and enduring the pain of their death. "I wish i would've known in the first minute we met/ the unpayable debt that I owed you/... Something kept me standing by that hospital bed/ I should've quit but instead I took care of you/ You made me sleep all uneven/ And I didn't believe them when they told me that there was no saving you". That was enough to bring me in and continue with the album. The sure awe that such raw emotion could be expressed in such a majestic and relatable manor, and that it was consistent from the intro to the very last track. It's an amazing characteristic that The Antlers hold- the ability to be organically relatable. They touch base with every layer of low emotion throughout the album. The struggle of the aching heart and the very premise of the album title in "Atrophy", "Two", and "Shiva"; the pure desperation in "Thirteen". Even hitting home for some with the contemplation of abortion with "Bear". What is even more impressive is that while you can feel the sorrow seep into your soul from
Hospice, Silberman also paints an image of what comes after life's hardships and how to get through them: to be strong. So well said in "Wake":
"Don't be so scared to speak,
Don't speak with someone's tooth,
Don't bargain when you're weak,
Don't take that sharp abuse,
Some patients can't be saved, but that burden's not on you.
Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.
Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.
Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that."
Hospice quite possibly played a major role in saving my life. It remains one of the best albums I have ever heard. An indie trance that you don't want to escape from, this is an album you can lose yourself in. Front man on vocals and guitar Silberman, percussionist Lerner, and Cicci on keyboard, synth, and organ, bring to the table an amazing collaboration of unfiltered emotion, talent, and quality with
Hospice. A definite classic that heals both the mind and the heart.
