The Antlers

The Antlers is an American rock group based in New York. It was initiated as a solo project by Peter Silberman. In 2006, using The Antlers moniker, he released at his own expense, an album called Uprooted, a product of solely his own creative ideas. He recorded all the music in the mobile studio that he installed in his house. The same year, Peter began the preparations of the material for his sophomore album. This time, he found assistance incarnated by the musicians Michael Lerner and Darby Cicci who later became constant members of the project that turned into a real band. As a result, the musician made the record that they again released independently in 2007 under the title In The Attic of the Universe. The participation of the new persons in the project’s recording process had a strong influence on the sounding of The Antlers, not a solo project any longer. While Uprooted was made in the vein of folk rock with the use of acoustic guitar only, the making of the subsequent record involved the application of the much larger arsenal of instruments including drums and electric guitars.

In 2008, The Antlers continued working in the studio and prepared two EPs, Cold War, and New York Hospitals. The group kept doing without labels and released both works on their own. In the spring of 2009, the musicians delivered a very successful album that received the name Hospice. The story of this record is quite singular. Peter wrote the whole lot of material solely in his bedroom when he was living in complete seclusion. The musician stayed away from the streets and met his friends and family as seldom as possible. For a year and a half, he tried to avoid communication with the other people and spent all his free time in a company of his own. Then he returned to have The Antlers recording what he had written for another year and a half. In the long run, they produced a very emotional and innovative album of ten chapters constituting a tragic love story. It was a tale of a young man whose beloved woman died out of cancer on his arms. It was clear as day that Peter’s song writing and performing talent had evolved. The musician’s verses reached their perfection while the guitar he played sounded better than ever before.

This record appeared much heavier and darker than the group’s first efforts, which ultimately matched the lyrical concept of the album. Loyal to their methods, The Antlers issued this long player without the assistance of sound recording companies and, as it turned out soon, were badly mistaken about the number of the copies. The sales of Hospice were much higher than their most optimistic expectations, which urged the group to produce an additional stock of CDs. Critics were pleased by both musical and textual aspects of this work that was many times named in the lists of candidates to the Album of the Year title. Considering all this, it is not hard to guess that the majority of credits went to Peter Silberman who replied such an attitude with a promise that all the three members of The Antlers would participate in the creation of their subsequent long player. In the summer of 2009, the group signed a contract with French Kiss Records, a company that took up the release of the re-edition of Hospice in August 2009.