Undersea by The Antlers

Deliberate and coherent, the 22-minute release soaks in a flood of vivid, self-contained bliss.

Silberman's lyrics are as simultaneously distant and evocative as ever, but the overwhelming amount of detail surrounding them renders them somewhat irrelevant here, a bubbling treasure chest in Undersea's sonically overwhelming fish tank. 

There is nothing here in the vein of 'I Don't Want Love' ... instead there is only a leaner, more perfectly realised sample of The Antlers' musical manifesto.

If Undersea does indeed signify the beginning of a new chapter for The Antlers, it’s pretty great so far.

.. an EP that feels much more significant than its 22 minute running length would imply, and for songs far more absorbing than many bands achieve in their entire career, let alone in between records.

If this is simply a tease of The Antlers’ next full-length, we’d all better prepare for an epic, mind-bending masterpiece.

The Antlers’ new four-song EP, Undersea, departs somewhat from the emotional turmoil of their recent output, but holds tightly to the idea that each release is more than just a collection of new songs, but rather a unified whole. 

The slow guitar, meditative drums, haunting horns, and effects sink into four tracks that almost listen as one, yet stand out individually.

Undersea feels like The Antlers most democratic effort by a large margin, and so it is understandably their most varied, sonically and in terms of quality.

The meditative flow of the music feels complete, though not quite as intriguing.

Where ‘Undersea’ falls down is in their reluctance to organise their woes into anything approaching a song, preferring instead to meander in opaque sedation.