Ten years on, what is there left to say about Hospice? On the ten year anniversary of its release, views of the album have only grown more polarizing, described either as one of the best releases of the late aughts or a melodramatic slog reminiscent of the poetry of an eighth grader. Which is it?

It seems almost beside the point to begin by approaching the musical aspects of the album - but they're the most timeless aspect of the whole piece. I hesitate to associate the album with Slowcore, because there's a much wider assortment of tempos and arrangements than the word "slow" describes. Musically, Hospice screams (Sylvia) and whispers (Epilogue), it's full of naïve hope (Bear) and dread (Kettering), nervous energy (Two) and calm acceptance (Wake). And as an album it's so meticulously crafted each emotion leads into the other seamlessly, not a second wasted or an instrument imprecisely placed. In this regard I'm inclined to think of Two specifically, with the layers of horns, guitar, and a bowed banjo all leading to a building chaos, or the emotional release of Sylvia, the layers of guitars elevating Silberman's vocals to new heights.

But the music in this case only works to serve the lyrics. And in that regard it almost feels unfair to compare Hospice to any other album, before or since. It's undoubtedly a sad album (for lack of a better descriptor) but it's an extremely different type of sad than anything I've ever quite experienced. Some musicians approach sadness as a primal, unknowable knot inside our stomach we have to scream or cry away (see: American Football), and others view it as a card we're dealt, our only real recourse against it detached irony (much of the "sad" music of the late 10s certainly approaches sadness as such). Hospice takes aspects of both of these into account, but Silberman inherently sees the flaws in these approaches - neither is so much coping as it is covering - and attempts to achieve something more than catharsis in 51 minutes with an unabashed earnestness I simply haven't seen.

Perhaps the most prescient example of this is the central metaphor of the album - the relationship between the author and his dying patient, a whirlwind of love and abuse. How much of it is the true experience of Silberman is irrelevant - it is what the lyrics convey that matter, and from the first song we can feel the dread and longing in equal measure, hope in the face of despair, emotion that simply can't be communicated in simpler terms. "But something kept me standing by that hospital bed / I should have quit, but instead, I took care of you… / You made me sleep and uneven, and I didn't believe them when they / told me that there was no saving you…"

Hospice is often described as an unsubtle album, a characterization I feel is unfair. The sadness itself as depicted throughout is certainly unsubtle - we look to lines like the above and the chorus of Sylvia ("Sylvia, get your head out of the oven / go back to screaming and cursing, remind me again how everyone betrayed you…") as "unsubtle," but between the lines is where much of the album truly reaches its full potential - the *conflict* in these lines with later emotions, the hate that the patient tosses at the author and the care the author gives back regardless. I am struck particularly by Shiva in this regard - at this point in the album, we've experienced the entire turbulent relationship of the patient and the author. But as the patient dies, the author imagines himself in her place, filled with regret and desire for more.

The mix of emotions at the end of an abusive relationship can perhaps be distilled to that single moment, and certainly the song would be a strong, if "unsubtle" approach if that were the case. But Hospice knows better - experiencing every moment of the album beforehand, the childish hope in the face of tragedy of Kettering, the fighting out of love in Sylvia, the need for affection in Atrophy, the brief but powerful moments of joy in a relationship marred by tragedy of Bear, the tragic life of the patient in Two - that it's a more powerful statement, an encapsulation of every moment the two shared before then, a truly magnificent piece.

That, then, is what Hospice is. More than the sum of its parts. Look at Bear or Two individually and you can certainly argue the point there's no deeper meaning to be had. Listen through the album front to back, and *really* tie together the moments in your mind - and maybe you'll find more. But, then again, Hospice is an album completed unconcerned with your opinion anyway - making no attempts to couch its emotions in levels of detached commentary - that it's an engaging and fascinating listen regardless.