Send "The Antlers " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
_EP_05.01.2012.jpg) The Antler’s latest release, the (together) EP, consists mainly of alternate versions and remixes of songs from Burst Apart, along with one bonus track and a cover. Most of the interest in this EP lies in the alternative versions of album tracks, which show two sides of lead singer Peter Silberman and company: long-winded and spare.The EP begins and ends with two different alternate versions of “Parentheses:” one featuring Bear in Heaven, and the other the PVT remix. The version featuring Bear in Heaven is a whopping 18 minutes and 16 seconds; it’s certainly a brave way to end a record. If the original “Parentheses” was your jam and you want to hear it stretched out almost to its breaking point (or possibly, past that) with (extended) instrumental passages appended, this may be the cathartic fix of the Antlers that you require. The band plays up the swirling parts, and Silberman’s falsetto becomes even more unnatural, resembling a howl that might terrify you if you were out for a midnight stroll on an empty moor. If, instead, you think that 18 minutes of this sounds aimless or boring, then I would stick to the PVT remix. The original “Parentheses” has mean guitar mixed into the swirling passages, held together by a percussive shuffle. The remix throws those high vocals into oscillating synths, more straightforward drumming and a prominent bass line. It’s more like off kilter synth funk – the menacing guitar riff disappears altogether, but the song doesn’t lose its sense of threat. The two different takes on “Parentheses” capture the approach to most of the alternate versions. The Antlers either play things out to the max or show more bare-bones approaches to their album tracks. “French Exit” is one of the funkier songs on Burst Apart. The SNRF version seems faster, it strips away the funky feeling of the original’s first half and replaces it mainly with darting synths. It’s sparer and a little more manic. The album version of “I Don’t Want Love” focuses on the contrast between that fragile falsetto and the gleaming, deep instrumentation; the EP version is more sluggish. It has no percussion and the guitar is fuzzed and crawling rather than cool and crystal clear, as if Billy Bragg slowed his songs way down and started singing like a 12-year-old in a boys’ choir. On the one hand, this emphasizes the isolated, self-protecting ache of a song titled “I Don’t Want Love.” On the other, it lacks the tension between fragility and lushness....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| The Antlers are definitely an album kind of band. While their songs can grab attention and provoke emotions from someone that’s only halfway listening, it doesn’t take much to suck you out of the dreary, melodramatic mindset they tend to bring up in people. It’s not like we’ve had to even consider it that much. Their two previous studio efforts — 2009’s moody and borderline depressing Hospice and a somewhat (but not much) more uplifting release this year with Burst Apart— have all been concise, focused efforts that feel like they’re establishing and holding a certain mood. But the Antlers’ latest release certainly isn’t that kind of album. The EP, titled (together), is a collection of remixes, unreleased tracks and alternate versions of songs. And when you take a look at the outliers that didn’t quite make it onto Burst Apart, it’s sort of difficult to know what to do with them. The few remixes on the album — “Parenthesis” and “French Exit” — are pleasant enough and can stand alone as re-imaginations of the tracks they were before. The band’s take on The xx’s “VCR” merely does the track justice, but at best it will make you long for the original. But the two honest-to-god new tracks, one of which is a collaboration, feel strange and out of place when placed among electronic-heavy remixes and already-familiar outtakes. The first original is “Tongue Tied,” a tense piano-driven track that subs out the band’s soft-hitting drummer Michael Lerner for a looping, distorted drum sample. As far as songwriting and production goes, it’s by far the band’s strongest unreleased track on the album and also the most likable when placed in the grab-bag of songs....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Prior to the release of Burst Apart, the Antlers' Peter Silberman delivered a track-by-track breakdown of his band's gorgeous, subtly gripping record to Drowned in Sound-- the explanation of "Rolled Together" was particularly revelatory on three levels. First off, this is a pretty strange exercise for a lyricist as blunt as Silberman-- rarely does an Antlers song leave much to the imagination in regards to "what it's about." Secondly, he went on to call it the result of an obsession with Boards of Canada, which also struck me as odd since it sounds almost exactly like Sigur Rós' "Svefn-G-Englar". Lastly, he described the track as "best heard stoned with friends." If so, while "Rolled Together" is Burst Apart's musical centerpiece, it's the thematic outlier on a record that speaks about sex and alcohol in an unusually austere and often negative manner, endorsing solitude and emotional sobriety as a corrective to the inevitable turmoil each brings. "Rolled Together" is better understood as the jumping off point for the odds and sods collection of the (together) EP, since it proves that, despite what Hospice and Burst Apart may have led you to believe, Silberman isn't holed up in a Brooklyn apartment waiting for his heart to be atomized between albums. That's not to say drugs were clearly a major influence here-- but the indie rock remix album is pretty much on the level of a bowl-passing session or drum circle in terms of pastimes that can be enjoyed only by the people directly participating in them. Hospice and Burst Apart were closed narrative circuits, so any sort of mixed bag from Antlers was bound to be jarring, and indeed, each entry into this hodgepodge of refurbishments, live performances, and outtakes exhibits its own unique set of errant artistic impulses. Take their cover of the xx's "VCR", for instance. Look beyond the fact that sampling, remixing, or covering the xx is quickly becoming a tiresome rite of passage and remember why the impact of xx continues to manifest: While the songwriting was surely exquisite, its striking minimalism, romantic candor, and sonic intimacy still cuts through the indistinct clutter many of the bands reinterpreting their music don't even realize they're responsible for. Problem isn't that the version here stays true to none of the original's artistic ideals, but it doesn't even sound like "VCR" reconfigured to the Antlers specs of passionate, electronic pop-- everything gets soused in a whorl of reverb, to the point where a Doppler effect on Silberman's vocals is the only thing breaking through. For whatever reason, the same tactics are applied to "I Don’t Want Love (Peter's Version)". Where the sleek and silvery contours of the original added a layer of resolute determination to the narrator's conflicted take on physical attachment, the solo version just turns maudlin and ponderous under its blown-out echo, something akin to hearing the guy down the hall work through cover versions of Grace....full text |
The Antlers lyrics
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_EP_05.01.2012.jpg "The Antlers - (together) EP review")