The Beauty And Tragedy Behind 'Familiars'

If you’re broken-hearted, you should probably listen to The Antlers. That’s been a sentiment that’s stuck to the New York City-based band ever since Peter Silberman began releasing music under the name back in 2006. Whether or not that was Silberman’s aim, five albums in they’re a conduit for angst, heartbreak and tumultuous life moments in general.

"You know, with something like music you have to let it marinate in your mind before it starts to make sense."

The Antlers – Silberman, drummer Michael Lerner and keyboardist Darby Cicci – have just finished a preliminary US tour with fifth album, Familiars. While Silberman’s lyrics are often full of profound, shimmering imagery that’s hard to identify, Familiars in essence feels like a ‘release’ album; the tension and angst that filled previous albums replaced by airy self-reflection.

“I think [the fans] have really gotten to the point where they relate to the album now, which is great,” Silberman admits. “It’s not like Hospice or Burst Apart in the way that those albums were about getting through something very meaningful and life-changing. I don’t know, I feel like this record is more from a lot of other places; it’s less about one idea. And, you know, everyone’s always going to have their own perspective on the music you make, and I think people are making their own minds up about it, which is great. You know, with something like music you have to let it marinate in your mind before it starts to make sense.”

Being a powerfully lyrical writer, Silberman’s intake of literary and visual influences is pretty high. Whilst Hospice had a very clear narrative – the story of a young hospice worker and his relationship with a terminally ill patient – and other albums had their own, albeit less connected, concepts, Silberman aimed to be more experimental with Familiars. As such, there are references from Aldous Huxley to Enter The Void, Gaspar Noé’s surreal exploration into drugs, death and the afterlife.

“I took a lot of different things from a lot of different sources, and to me they come through in the music as really specific things, but I don’t think they come through as obviously as that to everyone else. They’re more like ideas. Like the first half of [album opener] Palace, the lyrics to that song are kinda based on a movie called Upstream Colour. It’s the story of these two lovers that are… kinda wrecked but brought together by this parasite. It’s beautiful but tragic at the same time, and I think that’s what I wanted out of that song... Thinking about that movie and the other influences, that’s where the word association really comes from, but then it’s really up to chance how the music turns out after that, because everyone has a different perspective. I’ve always just wanted to make music that makes people think. If they can come away from this album with one question in their heart – a question about themselves or the world – then that’s what matters to me.”