Kenneth Huang — The Antlers Return With New Album

In 2009, The Antlers made a heavy mark on the music world with the album Hospice. The band’s primary songwriter, Peter Silberman, wrote the album as a story of a patient with bone cancer; a risky choice considering that he was using the story metaphorically as a description of a recent break up.

The risk paid off with an album that resonated with huge audience. NPR interviewed Silberman to discuss the band’s new album Familiars, and it is clear from some of his responses that some the reception of Hospice is still affecting the band.

For Silberman, the central metaphor in his band’s 2009 record is a question of willingness.

“I was thinking in terms of a caregiver’s relationship to a patient,” he says, “and how there is a kind of willingness to put up with whatever emotional state the patient is in, in order to help them through this process of dying.”

He says that over the past five years though, many music fans have approached him with their own stories of loved ones lost to cancer, so much so that he questioned the artistic choices he had made on the record. Ultimately though, he finds that empathizing with another person’s anguish need not require an identical experience, and that if the album helped to alleviate some of the feelings of confusion and isolation that come from loss, it is a good thing.

Of his new album, Silberman has moved away from such loaded imagery, but he is still dealing heavily with strong personal and psychological themes. Of the song “Doppelganger,” he says that he was attempting to delve into hidden mental states, using the metaphor of monster living inside a person. Similarly, the song “Revisited” deals with the hold memory has over a person’s psyche and decision making, and how seeing memories from a new perspective can be effect how a person views those decisions.

Clearly, The Antlers have not softened on the their approach to making music that takes risks. Familiars will be released June 16.

To read the entire interview, head over to NPR.