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

Two of Us Riding Nowhere

What is it about movie trailer songs? First let me say - I like this song. It's catchy and exciting:

"I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes,
I just held you in the doorframe through all of the earthquakes.
But you packed up your clothes in that bag every night,
and I would try to grab your ankles (what a pitiful sight.)"

But this is emo. Emo seems like a cute word for melodrama, that term for the song in your Springtime drama film trailer, the one where the characters blink and cry in slow motion. I'm fine with that if the song is airy, climactic and smart. It helps to have cool construction paper animation & real footage of lighthouses by directors Ethan Segal and Albert Thrower.

The Antlers - Two

Lean on Fruit Bats

The Ruminant Band is one of my favorite albums of the year. According to Sub Pop, they are "heralded and forward-thinking as Vetiver and The Shins," but I love the touches of soul, Motowny dance-hall guitar they have in songs like "Feather Bed" and "Blessed Breeze":

"I always you thought you never gave enough / But now there's too much love"

It's good to meditate with folk & blues. This month the Fruit Bats are in Texas, doing some nice little ruminations at Good Records (which I will be attending with big cow-bells on) and Waterloo in Austin, for you southerners.

You Can Leave It

A few months ago, I wasn't sure about this band but I had this song in my iTunes. I saw them before Cotton Jones, and something felt off about it. This song though, has played so frequently. Sometimes, you have to listen to your emotional response and shut off your brain - if it's wrong or right, who cares. It's music that makes you feel something.

This Parson Red Heads song definitely makes you feel something.

New Avett Brothers, Great Beard

The Avett Brothers~Laundry Room from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Egg Shake, Clap Clap Clap

On a perfect little tour: Roadside Graves, Rural Alberta Advantage and the strange folk of The Daredevil Christopher Wright. Like RRA and Roadside Graves, there's a distinct sense of loss in their music, or at least in this sad & Final Fantasy-like, asynchronous, recorder happy "The East Coast" - with a egg shake and a set of harmonies, they sing,

"The sun is setting on the bay and the wedding it's a lovely lovely ceremony"

And there's a recorder. Beat that, folk lovers.

The Daredevil Christopher Wright - East Coast

Out of Touch Sunday Collection

If you're like me and have dropped out of time and space, around the world, for a week or two and crave (in that willing to cut your arm off way), good, sturdy, well-written new music: here is some good stuff. Has there been a better year for music than this year? The top ten list is already starting to going to have about twenty runner ups -

What I mean is, press play on this short list and or click their pages and let me know what you like - because, Jesus, I sure want to talk about all this great stuff...

The Antlers and their smart pop; the Fruit Bats sizzling acoustics; Creaturesque's trailblazing with deep, candied guitar and Neutral Milkiness; The Bottle Rockets southern and drunk; Jonsi and Alex's Riceboy Sleeps & James Blackshaw's gothic choir of guitars...so much good stuff I'm going to go nuclear.

The Antlers - Two

Fruit Bats - Primitive Man

Creaturesque - Baby You're Bored

The Bottle Rockets - The Long Way