The Antlers
Blight
Transgressive Records
Urban or otherwise, Blight usually doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye. More often, it results from years of neglect, whether the decaying rot ravages the soul, the environment, or the body politic. To borrow a line from Hüsker Dü, Peter Silberman, the meditative mastermind behind The Antlers, is dead set on destruction, or rather the study of it in all its forms, on their latest album, which pulls off a delicate balancing act of quiet rebellion and stormy violence.
Blight is especially concerned with ecological devastation, its slow-moving fragility and sparse instrumentation centered around piano murmurs and calligraphy creating a sense of stark austerity that stops listeners in their tracks. In the crumbling ballad “Consider the Source,” Silberman gently intones, “Every bargain has a hidden cost,” the words landing like a redwood falling in the forest. Choices made for the sake of convenience — consequences be damned — are replayed and reconsidered, as keys are softly struck, a pretty melody emerging from broken chords to cushion the blows. “A Great Flood” is just as brittle, the whispered hymn of forgiveness for careless decisions wondering if what’s suggested by its title can wash them away in baptismal redemption.
It takes patience to live with Blight, where haunting folk intimacy and spare electronica batten down the hatches in anticipation of crashing post-rock crescendos, like that which pummels the hypnotic “Carnage.” Fuzzy electronic impulses and lush, percussive piano keep blinking, as Silberman ruminates on “accidental damage,” a noisy catharsis building into a powerful show of force. Less awe-inspiring, but more alluring, the flowing title track throbs beautifully, finely turned acoustic guitar and tender, brushed drumming waiting on snappy, furry beats to pick up the pace and more bits of lovely piano caresses for comfort.
A swaying, martial “Calamity” stays in its lane, returning to a place of folky solitude, while the spiraling “Deactivate” blooms into powdery, heavenly bliss, as if calling for divine intervention to fix all the world’s messes. “Pour” turns feathery Iron & Wine artistry into a trip down a mysterious rabbit hole, before resurfacing in earthy, agrarian churn and then levitating into a bath of angelic light. Rather than preach, Blight asks questions and admits faults, seeking to better itself, while wrapped in the unraveling elegance of Anohni and the Johnsons. Don’t remove this Blight. There’s nothing ugly about it.
