The Antlers:Burst Apart

Frenchkiss Records

8.3/10 dropps

Brooklyn based indie band The Antlers had a lot to live up to this time around. Their 2009 release Hospice is considered by many to be a masterfully composed and executed record, at once gloriously riveting and crushingly saddening. The record unraveled the tale of a destructive and abusive relationship through an analogy detailing a hospice worker falling in love with a dying patient. It was gripping, depressing, moving and crushing. With Burst Apart, The Antlers prove that they don’t need a horribly tragic backdrop to create a great record. Although Burst Apart lacks their previous effort’s haunting narrative, it proves to be a formidable follow-up that both showcases an evolution in the group’s songwriting and holds true to their ability to express raw, visceral emotions.

With Burst Apart, Frontman and mastermind Peter Silberman strived to ensure that each individual song resonated and existed as its own piece, not necessarily tethered to the other songs in the way that Hospice was structured. Gone are the passages of noise and ambiance in between songs, the lull in between each of the movements. On Burst Apart these breaks and lulls are now placed within each song, allowing each one to become its own movement. Opener “I Don’t Want Love” begins with standard Antlers fare – a downtempo drum beat and gentle guitar sweeps as Silberman’s distinctive croon filters its way through the noise behind wavering synthesizers. Silberman repeats the phrase “I don’t want love” several times throughout the song, perhaps showcasing that the band has shed their affection to the concepts of relationships and romance their previous outing focused on. The last thirty seconds of the song are ethereal and heart-wrenching, Silberman’s falsetto proving that the band has found a way to condense the drawn out and powerful emotional breakdown of Hospice into smaller, quainter (albeit less powerful) compositions.

Songs like “No Widows” and “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” give us what The Antlers do best: beautiful, lush, soaring soundscapes. The former is slow and churns its way through glimmering synthesizers and reverberating guitar clicks, as well as an amazing vocal performance by Silberman. The chorus is especially moving, as Silberman’s falsetto spearheads the words “”When they shake, say the wings won’t break” right through your heartstrings. Silberman’s lyrics on the album are slightly more poetic and abstract when compared to the pseudo-narrative style applied on Hospice, but it is clear that Burst Apart deals with the all too common themes of loneliness, death, love loss, and sex that make up all of our lives. “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” is one of the most direct and energetic songs on the record and a testament to The Antlers’ aforementioned ability to engage and grip the listener on a song-by-song basis.

It seems almost necessary to continue to compare Hospice and Burst Apart, simply because understanding the evolution in the band’s songwriting is crucial to grasping the appeal behind Burst Apart. Hospice was as great as it was (well, not entirely) because of its flow – the rising and falling of the action and emotion. It was an album that needed to be listened to all the way through in order to receive the fully intended effect. On Burst Apart, the songs are more complete in-and-of themselves. That is, the album as a whole isn’t any less or more complete than the previous one, but seemingly, each individual song is. In fact, the trifecta of “Tiptoe,” “Hounds,” and “Corsicana” are the only ones that ebb and flow into each other, uniting to create a larger whole (a-la Hospice). “Tiptoe” is largely ambient and quiet, leading into the somber and trudging “Hounds,” which is concluded by the piano heavy “Corsicana.” These three songs segue way beautifully into album closer “Putting The Dog To Sleep,” an absolutely haunting piece that is the closest the band gets to the magnitude and scope of their previous record. The song opens with Silberman pleading “Prove to me I’m not going to die alone” as the sharp, jarring guitar progression forces the tears out of you with each strum. It is surely one of the best songs in the band’s catalogue and one of the better songs we’ve heard this year.

Ultimately, comparisons between Hospice and Burst Apart are inevitable, largely because of the seminal cult-following that Hospice was able to garner. The new record is not a continuation of the previous one by any means. It is, as has been stated, an evolution. It is a demonstration of The Antlers progressing with their sound and applying new techniques and themes to their music. Although it isn’t as devastating and poignant as Hospice was, it is still a powerful collection of songs that engages the listener and hardly staggers. It gives us assurance that The Antlers aren’t a band with only one trick up their sleeve or that their frontman needs to be having an emotional breakdown in order to produce great music.

-Wilson De Gouveia