Hospice, the latest studio album from the Antlers, is unsettling and comforting at the same time. The music is incredibly varied but is grounded mostly in ethereal, dreamy, music which ranges from pleasant and melodic to scary and atonal. It makes sense given the title is Hospice. A hospice is a place where people go to die but be made comfortable as possible while they do so. The music on the album seems to go back and forth between this idea of a place of comfort and care and also the real purpose of the hospice which is basically a waiting room for an impending death. This further visible on the album cover which includes an outstretched hand hovering over another hand clad in a plastic hospital bracelet. The band also plays a lot with dynamics and shifts of mood on Hospice. In the song "Two" the music is undeniably cheerful while songs like "Kettering" it's quiet, gloomy, and foreboding. These sorts of variations always indicate to me, a good band, capable of flexibility and universally relevant musicianship.
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