Hospice - The Antlers
Metascore
83 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 21 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
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  1. Lost At Sea
    100
    Hospice sits squarely in this camp, a heartbreaking aural experience that hits us on a deeper level.
  2. The A.V. Club
    91
    There’s a straightforward appeal to the album’s dynamism and fatalism, but that appeal swells with each close listen.
  3. musicOMH.com
    90
    Hospice succeeds by conveying deeply personal traumas as universally appreciable truths, until one man's lonely, painful catharsis transmogrifies into something panoramic and shared by all.
  4. Hot Press
    90
    Brooklyn's latest greatest deliver heartbreaking concept album.
  5. Delusions of Adequacy
    90
    This quintet of musicians are making a name for themselves and with Hospice, they have remarkably made one of 2009’s best albums.
  6. Pitchfork
    85
    Hospice answers silliness with solemnity, jitters with nerve. Their band name simply describes their music: a delicately branching instrument of force.
  7. Filter
    84
    Hospice accomplishes volumes by the addition of drumer Michael Lerner and multi-instrumentlist Darby Cicci, creating an expansively profound album addressing life's most transitory and fragile states. [Summer 2009, p.94]
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User Reviews

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User Score
9.2 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 93 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 40
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 40
  3. Negative: 2 out of 40
  1. Pastry_AAA
    2
    basically it goes like this

    Song 1... Prologue... is the prologue

    Song 2... Kettering... girl is in hospital because a guy beat her up w    ith a bone... she's really sad and quiet but her nurse decides to take care of her because its his job

    Song 3... Atrophy... he does surgery to take the bullets out of her body and puts them inside of himself... it makes him so sad that he gives her "a trophy" for making him so sad...

    Song 4... Bear... while he is performing surgery he finds out that there is actually a live bear inside her stomach as well, he gets into an argument with the bear about whether they're too old or not old at all

    Thirteen... while he is doing surgery there is a little woman inside where the bear was and it sings a song to him asking to pull her out also

    Two... I dunno what this song is about really but i think he's talking about her past and then the doctor tells him he has to stop trying to help her because there is way too much **** inside her... the bear has grown angry and it breaks all the light bulbs and glass rains down from the ceiling...

    Shiva... she takes off a ring and puts it on his finger and it turns him into Shiva, from the Final Fantasy series, but as he's transforming the "sensation is shivers" because he's ice elemental and it's real cold

    Wake... spoiler alert... he wakes up and it was all a dream... but then a helicopter comes outside his window and she's inside of it but he ties the rope around his neck... and dies

    Epilogue... they both die and they are buried together but they are still alive and she is screaming so much that he can't sleep    … Full Review »
  2. Vampire25
    9
    This is easily one of the most emotional albums I've ever listened too. The concept of a girl with cancer and an abused relationship is so tightly wound up inside these lyrics that you can't help but become consumed with her, listening to each song eagerly awaiting what happens next. This album spoke to me on a way more personal level, and if that was The Antlers goal, they succeeded. "Bear" is easily the stand-out track on this LP. All In All, the lyrics on Hospice are gorgeous, the vocals extremely emotional, and the production very subtle, yet so good. A-… Full Review »
  3. Where
    0
    Any album that can deliver such intense emotions to the listener deserves a 10/10. Never heard anything more emotionally affecting than Hospice by The Antlers.… Full Review »
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