The Best of 2009: The Antlers – Hospice

I’ll start off this series of articles on my list of the best albums to be released this year. I can say that 2009 is a relatively good year for music. There has been a steady release of interesting albums from a wide range of artists that straddle various genre.

Personally, my vote for best album of 2009 goes to The Antlers’ Hospice. 

The Antlers is a relatively little known band hailing from Brooklyn, New York. Hospice is the band’s third album and their first concept album. Hospice deals with the story of a man who meets a cancer patient in a cancer ward. He falls in love with her and eventually watches her as she dies from her disease.

If you think the concept is depressing — it really is. The album is filled with an overwhelming sense of despair, grief and loss. But these are emotions that the band has mined for all of its power. Hospice is devastatingly beautiful — unabashedly bathing in its pain. This is an album that doesn’t shirk away from baring its soul. Each song is a powerful testament to love lost that is expressed not just in Peter Silberman’s lyrics but in the sheer musicality of the band.

Hospice is that rarest of albums — one that is immersed in depression but leaves you with a feeling of triumph for exposing yourself to this flash of genius.