Hospice

The Antlers wildly popular debut album,Hospice, finally receives a proper widespread release through Frenchkiss!

Hospice resonates on debilitating sonic and lyrical levels, from the hypnotic harp and tension-ratcheting build of "Two" to the sing-or-sink choruses of "Bear" and the speaker-rattling peaks of "Sylvia," easily one of the year's most immediate epics. It's here, amidst contrasting shards of ambient noise, sweeping strings and smoky horns, where The Antlers truly transcend their singer-songwriter beginnings - a striking escalation of expectations first hinted at on 2008's New York Hospitals EP. The progression doesn't end there, either. In a move that could be taken as the riff-raking extension of his thorough guitar training (from the age of 6 'til right before college), "Atrophy" and "Wake" delve into sheets of distortion, subtle shades of soul, cicada-like effects and enough movements to fill an entire EP.

For this release, The Antlers' Technicolor-tinged trio take all of Hospice's songs - and three previous releases - in a completely different direction, jettisoning a note-for-note rendition of the record for "a massive sound" doused in delay, reverb and unrehearsed chaos.