Emotion is a tool that is so often overlooked by artists in modern music. Truth, longing, elation, disgust and the rest of the emotional gamut appear everywhere, but they usually exist somewhere below the music, taking secondary status to the rhythm and the melody. It isn't often that a song comes along with as much genuine gut-wrenching pathos as a well-crafted drama, let alone an entire album. But that is exactly what you get with Hospice from the Antlers: an album that goes to such jarring, raw emotional depths that only the coldest of souls would fail to be affected by it.
But don't be misled, Hospice isn't some angsty late '90s emo throwback album. The mental anguish of its tracks comes directly from its literary through-line detailing the story of a man watching a loved one slowly die of cancer. Yet at the same time, the Antlers make the whole account entirely relatable even for those who haven't gone through similar experiences, as they paint in broad strokes recognizable to anybody who has ever watched something in their life fall apart while feeling helpless to do anything about it. Hospice is not easy to listen to by any means, but that difficulty makes it all the more worthwhile an experience.
