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Jun 17, 2014With this rewarding album, The Antlers take the band’s wounds and find glimmers of redemption and hope.
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Jun 17, 2014If you listen to Familiars--and you probably should because it is very great--it is crucial to do so with an open heart and an open head.
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Jun 13, 2014While the Antlers may struggle to escape the shadow of Hospice's success, they have undoubtedly succeeded in making another spectacular, cohesive record.
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Jun 24, 2014The album is ultimately the most cathartic and uplifting that songwriter Peter Silberman has crafted, indicating the demons he has long wrestled with may be tiring, if not nearing defeat.
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Jun 13, 2014The album’s great triumph--The Antlers’ great triumph--is the intelligence with which Silberman’s masterful lyricism is matched to its backdrops.
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Jun 19, 2014They’ve always done an exceptional job of bucking irony and sticking to their own earnest agenda, and this latest effort is no different; you’d be hard-pressed to find anything within a stone’s throw of a radio hit among these nine tracks, but you will find a smooth, almost flawlessly cohesive whole.
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MojoJul 2, 2014Unwieldy on paper, it comes to life through odd, prickly phrases, but the music cuts deepest. [Aug 2014, p.93]
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Jul 1, 2014Another big step for Silberman and required listening for any Americana aficionados.
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Jun 20, 2014Familiars‘ ultimately succeeds in delivering the third consecutive full-length gem from the Antlers.
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Jun 19, 2014Familiars is no jazz odyssey. And despite the prevalence of mid-paced, piano-led ballads, it never enters Coldplay territory either.
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Jun 19, 2014What a pleasure that Familiars is familiar primarily for its quality rather than its qualities.
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Jun 19, 2014The ambitious arrangements that separate this band from their moody contemporaries can actually make the album feel too emotionally intense for everyday listening.
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Jun 16, 2014The album's focus on horn arrangements and roomy, dreamlike production gives it a singular feel, one where listening through the entire album feels not unlike wading through a field of tall reeds as an inexplicably sad autumn day fades into twilight.
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Jun 16, 2014Poignant, lush and beautifully played, this is another predictably wonderful record from The Antlers.
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Jun 16, 2014Here, on their fifth album, the Brooklyn trio sound emboldened, finding room for horn sections and plaintive piano lines amid the murk.
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Jun 16, 2014Charges of over-solemnity may be levelled its way, but only occasionally are the melodic and narrative threads lost to a focus on miasmic, brush-stroked atmospherics.
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Q MagazineJun 13, 2014It's a record that demands you get to know it inside out. [Jul 2014, p.101]
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Jun 13, 2014This is an album that can make you weepy in the hazy blur of the wee small hours, and euphoric in the fuzzy afternoon sun.
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Jun 13, 2014Familiars may not be as obviously fervently intense as their previous work but the truth is its emotional weapons have just been wrapped in a beautiful bow.
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Jun 18, 2014Against all odds, they’ve become one of the most interesting indie rock bands working, and the stately beauty of Familiars is the latest satisfying effort from a band that continues to reward those listeners who give them the attention their elegant, secretly weird music deserves.
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Jun 17, 2014It all comes satisfyingly full circle, but Familiars mostly washes over you when it should be lunging for your heart.
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Jun 19, 2014Familiars is bleak and dreary, potentially at the cost of dragging in certain spots. However, those willing to spend enough time wrapped in its moody embrace will be rewarded with a quite beautiful experience.
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Jun 17, 2014Familiars finds the Antlers on a new, magnificent level of heavy songwriting.
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Jun 16, 2014Admittedly, these are ideas not groundbreaking except in their delivery, which does have a rare, sobering effect upon the listener--a trademark effect of The Antlers.
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Jun 13, 2014This is beautiful music, but after so many nights of losing teeth, it all too often is without them. [Jun/Jul 2014, p.84]
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UncutJun 13, 2014The addition of a horn section brings pleasing texture to the likes of "Hotel" and "Revisited," but it's rarely enough to lift The Antlers out of their willfully wounded torpor. [Jul 2014, p.69]
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Jun 13, 2014Familiars, then, is unsurprisingly, immensely moving.... But Familiars lacks any real musical inventiveness.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 50 out of 58
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Mixed: 5 out of 58
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Negative: 3 out of 58
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Jun 24, 2014
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Jun 19, 2014
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Jun 17, 2015