Every indie music fan has their gateway album, and mine from day one has been Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea". Over the years a portion of me has tried to find something similar, but all the low-fi and alt-folk I listened to always fell short lyrically. I finally have found something that comes close to Jeff Mangum's songwriting, in of all places "Hospice" from the Brooklyn shoegaze/dream pop group The Antlers.
A sober tale of illness, isolation and finally comfort unfolds over the 11 songs. The album plays between delicate Rhodes lines and twinkling guitar and wrenching loud sections. All the while lead singer Peter Silberman unfolds the album's touching narrative with a gentle falsetto that can turn into a scream that will move mostly anyone with a heart. When the album's "Prologue" finally comes, the emotional closer feelings strikingly like Hotel's "Two Headed Boy Pt. 2". While not at this point an "Aeroplane" to be, it is truly inspiring the parallels that "Hospice" makes me draw. Highly, highly recommended, one of my favorites of 2009.
http://www.myspace.com/theantlers
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