It’s weird to think that every time I’ve gone to see The Antlers, it’s been an entirely different configuration, from my first time in 2014 with the (then) full bamd, to the 10th anniversary acoustic Hospice tour, to the joint tour with Okkervil River a couple of years ago. It’s also, to be fair, weird to think that each gig has been in an increasingly small venue. I hope it remains financially viable for Peter Silberman, and as long as it is, I’m certainly not complaining. Tonight, it’s the current two-piece band set-up at Strange Brew, and it’s genuinely impressive how big a sound the two of them are able to conjure up. Palace goes from a mannered introduction to full on wall of noise, tailing out into the next song, purely through judicious use of a limited range of effect pedals. Silberman’s voice remains sent from the angels themselves, and there’s a coherence to the set, even as it spans a widly varied canon. When the three Hospice songs appear, it doesn’t feel like a jarring mini-set but a natural extension of songs like No Widows and Porchlight, even though on record they would absolutely jar. It is also, I note, the least emotionally affected I’ve felt by the Hospice songs live (although, granted, Putting The Dog To Sleep is still quite something) - maybe I’m just getting old. Oddly, the song that sticks most in my mind afterwards is Ahimsa, the Silberman solo track from 2017, played as the final song in the encore, a message of peace to go into the night. Support from Julie Odell, whom I enjoy a lot for the first song, sitting somewhere between Girls and Phoebe Bridgers, but the lack of textural variety throughout the set begins to wear slightly. I’d be intrigued to see whether that is different on record.