Album Review: The Antlers Hospice & Brendan Benson

Two polar opposites. Brendan Benson has grace. It's alive and bright. The album opens with "A Whole Lot Better," a illuminated-blue Strokes-esque love song that introduces you (if you're unfamiliar with his waxings) to his Bowie sides, with that acid IV-drip guitar of the Who, and you know, The Killers or something (God, don't you hate Killers comparison's?).

According to Aquarium Drunkard's well-drawn interview, Brendan is keen on writing compulsively, and has no problems referring to his music as retro, power pop. Coming from the Raconteurs, "My Old Familiar Friend" is refreshing. "Garbage Day," one of the better tracks on the album, is succinct, sweet, and humble:

"If she throws her heart away / I'll be there on Garbage Day"

So maybe this is power pop. It definitely has a Jamie Lidell, I-became-a-twenty-something-in the-90's-vibe, but Benson explores more and is more adventurous than say, Filter (God, I hate Filter references). I wasn't a big fan of "Gonowhere"'s unsoaring melodies and the synth heavy "Feel like Take You Home." "You Make A Fool Out of Me" varies between minimalistic ballad and a interlude cut track from Moulin Rouge--which works well. It's pretty. As a whole the album has the confidence of an experienced songwriter and a good musician, but is weighted by tropes of the power pop or retro or rock genre. Benson, however, seems to know this and embraces it. Ten years from now, I envision cars on a southern highway, like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, slamming their steering wheel in pure song elation to "Poised and Ready," or anything Benson graces us with.


I'm biased - I have a proclivity for bizarre, dark-romance indie rock like The Antlers. It opens with a sound I imagined made to imitate the burst of light when you die (so it is read). "Prologue" is beautiful and scratchy, unlike it's poppy doppelganger: "Two" (which definitely is about death). Since Dark Side of the Moon, it's been easy and lovable to open an album with the sounds of quietly leaving your body. The Antlers love this. "Kettering" dances in ascension; a smoky and quiet tribute to the the thunderstorm -

"When they called you a hurricane thundercloud / When I was checking vitals / I suggested a smile / You didn't talk for a while"

The phrase "slow burn" comes to mind. And images of smoke. Unlike its smoke elements, Hospice has density and heart. "Two" has scintillating imagery and electricity even in it's uncharacteristic (from the rest of the album) emo-ness romanticism. Greatness is abound, Shelley or that curly haired freak Byron might say, and "Hospice" is pretty and dark.

The Antlers - Kettering

Brendan Benson- Garbage Day