The Antlers - Burst Apart [Frenchkiss]

8.6

Hospice for The Antlers was sort of a "break out" record. It found its way onto many 2009 top albums lists. The hard part of course is coming up with a equal or better contender to the emotionally engaging Hospice. Burst Apart has potential to be met with the same amount of acclaim as its predecessor if not maybe more.

The Antlers have a sound of a mixture between a fully fledged dream-pop band and a very atmospheric shoegaze act. They have the very melodic, lazy stream of a dream-pop band and yet they have beautiful, layered guitar and other instrument textures to classify them as shoegaze. I think I’ll call it safe and call them indie pop for now. Burst Apart is a well-crafted and nicely put mixture of those two genres.

Like Hospice, Burst Apart is difficult at first to digest, but Burst Apart won’t take as long to just simply “click”. The realization of how crafty The Antlers really are. The way they blend so many different musical elements into one and mix it up and throw it out on an already full canvas, will surely be appreciated. The depressing, finale “Putting the Dog to Sleep” sounds like some manipulated slow dance piece that is escalated into a frenzy of instrumental layers that sound just gorgeous.

“You want to climb up the stairs/I want to push you right down,” croons Peter Silberman on the intro track “I Don’t Want Love” with his definitive, subtle, and beautiful voice that transgresses the tone and mood of the dark, love hate relationship Burst Apart is centered around. This “bitter sweet” theme is seen through the beautiful, charming instrumentals The Antlers create but is contradicted through Silberman’s lyricism; a casual, distracted listen of Burst Apart sounds like a very nice, mellow album with nice melodies, but a more focused listen reveals and darker and tragic theme.

Slowcore has never been a genre I really enjoy that much, Galaxie 500 or Lisa Germano didn’t really excite me all that much and never really exhilarated me as much as The Antlers have successfully done with Burst Apart. Hospice was a good sonic adventure, but Burst Apart is much easier to replay and has really good moments with little to none mediocre moments (the bizarre instrumental “Tip Toe”). Burst Apart will surely expand the variety of listeners that will come toward The Antlers.