The Antlers

Green To Gold

It feels like the opening of a new chapter, rather than the closing of the last one.

Though full of their standard melancholy, Green to Gold is a completely new look for the Antlers.

Green To Gold seems notably more reliant on organic acoustic instrumentation, largely eschewing the backdrops of ambient electronica found on previous albums, and Peter Silberman's half-whispered vocal melodies are more accessible than ever.

There's real beauty here and Silberman marries eventual accessibility with gentle boundary-pushing to create his own, thoughtful world.

It’s still a sumptuously crafted, warmly atmospheric and often beautiful work from The Antlers, proving that Silberman remains one of America’s most gifted, emotionally intelligent songwriters.

Green To Gold is a soft, supple study in dreamy repose, its amber glow made satisfying by Siberman and drummer Michael Lerner's matches of meaning to method.

No doubt there will be those who find Green to Gold just a little too light on the intensity and too heavy on the sentimentality, but this is a necessary and expected progression for The Antlers.

Chock-full of tranquil songs, Green To Gold displays another side of Peter Silberman’s songwriting gifts–reflective, at times wistful, and contemplative, completely at odds with hefty guitar-driven songs like “Parentheses” and “Bear.”

Sonically, they all have the same placid air about them, with few distinctive peaks or valleys. But even if the songs slide by effortlessly, this approach allows the Antlers to color in a moment without demanding too much attention.

The Antlers’ latest embraces the changing seasons and the natural inevitability of transitions, and it is itself an elegant musical metamorphosis for a group that seemed crystallized within its mid-’00s indie-rock styles.

On the whole, Green to Gold reshapes the Antlers' once somber and brooding chamber pop into something bright and smiling. The songs strip away the sharpness and volatility the band reveled in on earlier albums to reveal a pleasant glow that was all too often hidden in the shadows.

By the tenth track of verdant metaphors and leafy imagery, it's hard not to wish for the return of some of the angst which characterised The Antlers' earlier works, just to add a bit of bite. Still, with spring just around the corner, it's hard to be churlish.