Welcome to The National Day at Naive Harmonies! The band has already earned this week’s Fine Tune Friday honors. Now it’s time for bonus coverage; what follows is a review of their new album High Violet.
It’s easy to forget that, with the release this week of their new album High Violet, The National is now a band five full-length albums old. In today’s era of instant gratification and blog hype, where trends come and go within the blink of an eye, their’s has been a trajectory all too rare. Bands seldom get the opportunity to develop gradually over time; how else to explain that to the vast majority of its hard earned fan base, this writer included, it was actually the band’s third effort, Alligator, that first turned heads? Their fourth album, Boxer, raised stakes immeasurably, of course, and led to such high profile exposures as presidential campaign videos and advertisements for Google.
And so here we are with album number five. The Cincinnati-by-way-of-Brooklyn quintet certainly seems poised on the precipice of Big Things. Will High Violet be their Document? Their
Surprisingly, High Violet finds the band not so obviously outwardly reaching for that proverbial brass ring. It’s an album that, rather confoundedly, doesn’t necessarily expand one’s notion of who The National as a band is, but rather sees them digging their heels in, doggedly pursuing and continuing on the rewarding path they set on with Alligator and Boxer. “Like Leonard Cohen fronting Joy Division” remains an apt, although admittedly overly reductive, descriptor for the band.
Such observation may seem like faint praise—and one that would certainly raise an exasperated groan from the album’s seemingly process-tortured creators. (A band composed of two sets of brothers and a non-musician front man…what could possibly go wrong?) After all, what band wants to be accused of spinning its wheels? But make no mistake: what we have here is a bonfire hot streak. It’s a third masterstroke in as many efforts and one that places them in an atmosphere of rarefied air.
First single “Bloodbuzz Ohio” is the immediate standout, it’s crucial line “I still owe money to the money to the money I owe” perhaps succinctly capturing the sentiment felt by the many crushed by the recent financial housing crisis. It’s driving, propulsive backbeat and heavily reverb-laden piano provide the familiar bedrock for one of the band’s most memorable melodies. It feels like a valedictory moment and the kind of song that could achieve a “The One I Love” like ubiquity, if such a thing were still possible.
But those looking for an album chock full of game changers like “Bloodbuzz” or Dark Was The Night standout “So Far Around The Bend” may come away initially disappointed. Much of High Violet trades in slow burners; songs that take their time to burrow their way into your consciousness– another observation that would no doubt befuddle the band.
There’s also a deceptive but welcome sense of humor at work on High Violet. Like predecessors Morrissey and Stuart Murdoch, Matt Berninger is a miserabalist with tongue occasionally firmly planted in cheek. Tales of nuns vs. priests, summer lovin’ torture parties and the zombie-preferred diet of brains pepper the album and give a needed wink and nudge, ensuring that things never collapse beneath their own weight. In “Sorrow” Berninger pays homage to and directly quotes one of Stephin Merrit’s 69 Love Songs; it’s a song that doesn’t wallow in its own misery so much as playfully celebrates it. As both a lyricist and vocalist, Berninger is at the top of his game on High Violet, and his campaign to torch sing is commanding and persuasive.
If there’s any quibble to made here, it’s over the album’s production, which doesn’t quite do justice to the band’s wide screen arrangements and ambitions; this is particularly frustrating on an album where there seems to be a refocused emphasis on texture. One wonders what The National might do if they truly separated the process of writing from recording and perhaps even sought the counsel of a set of ears outside their tight-knit circle (the album was produced by the band themselves in their home studio, but mixed by associate Peter Katis).
“All the very best of us / String ourselves up for love” croons Berninger on the closing epic “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks”. And he could be well be singing about The National themselves, a band whose aforementioned tortured and sometimes contentious process of creation is well documented. Creating great art is, of course, its own reward. But if there’s any justice, the teeth gnashing and sleepless nights suffered during the making High Violet will translate to rich rewards and a well-deserved bump in listenership.