The National
High Violet

Confused and certain. Intense and modest. Confident and fearful. Playful and serious. Anxious and serene. Melancholy and hopeful. Cryptic and universal. They know how to build. They know how to release. They're the new Blue Blood. They're the Great White Hope. They're The National. And they're changing lives. I present our first double review for their fifth full-length album, the spectacular High Violet. - Danny Perkins

I don't have the drugs to sort it out.

Sorrow never sounded quite so magnificent nor so appealing as it does in the hands of The National. There is something which is incredibly moving about Matt Berninger's vocal delivery and the weight of his tombstone voice. It is both depressing and comforting at the same time but without fail, over the course of the last three albums, there have been moments which have moved me to tears. It is often inexplicable; the chorus to the rocky and raucous "Mr. November" for example still baffles me as I can't sing along to it without cracking up but I find it so difficult to put my finger on exactly why this happens but for the sake of those who may be curious I will attempt to do so.

In interviews with the music press Berninger has described the band's working process as somewhat laboured, tense and occasionally volatile as the five men try out different avenues to take the bare bones of their songs down. The results have been rewarding for all of us who class ourselves as fans of the band yet I can't help but feel that it probably wouldn't matter too much what the final outcome of the bickering and arguing sounds like, so long as Berninger delivers his warm baritone the song is most likely going to succeed. This isn't to detract from the abilities of the other four; collectively they produce some beautifully warm arrangements that are atmospheric and emotive in themselves, but whatever they play it is not a guitar line or a drum fill that sticks in your memory long after the album finishes but a deceptively infectious vocal line.

Berninger rarely stretches himself vocally but he plays to his strengths very well and creates memorable vocal lines using simple melodies and repetition of key phrases. It is these elements of their songs which make The National such an interesting band. He is also a cunning lyricist but his appeal isn't to young kids struggling with their raging hormones nor young adolescents who can't find any success with the opposite sex, his appeal is to people like me who are now considered as adults and, on the whole, middle class.

Broadly speaking the middle classes are labelled as miserable, thankless sods who don’t know which side our bread is buttered if we should complain about anything. We are quickly reminded that we are fortunate not to have been born into starving families in Africa, that all of our body parts are still attached and working (although my heart occasionally stops and it has killed me once but they brought me back and therefore I am to be thankful for everything) and we are usually fortunate enough to have the education that helps us to get the jobs with the better pay. And of course, if we can't make the rent then our parents will never see us go hungry or without a roof over our heads.

But on the flip side we are thinkers because of the education we were afforded, and we dwell on the great unanswerable questions a little too morbidly, our jobs pay the bills but it can be at the expense of our souls and our body parts hurt and ache and, as I mentioned, sometimes stop working. To escape the pressures of the rat race we turn to drink and drugs and sometimes our upbringing has been devoid of love even though it might have been plugged with money. These are our problems but we are scorned for bringing them up to anybody except our therapists, so when Berninger sings "With my kid on my shoulders I try/Not to hurt anybody I like/But I don't have the drugs to sort it out," it strikes a chord with us because we feel as though he is speaking for us and when we can't afford drugs or a good therapist then we can at least turn to him.

The aforementioned lyric is just one of the moments that struck a chord with me enough to wrinkle my flesh. But there are plenty of other moments like this one, and the first eight tracks at least speak to me on this level. "I still owe money to the money/To the money I owe" and "What makes you think I enjoy being left to the flood" are both lyrics that spring to mind instantly which seem to address such existential problems of the middle classes. These are often augmented with more striking orchestral arrangements than on previous releases and High Violet's overriding feel seems to be one of maturity, from a band that were already dangerously mature for the pop music business. They may not be fun, but they certainly seem to be a vital part of the rock and roll canon.

After the first eight tracks the album seems to drift away from its intense focus and cohesion and "Conversation 16", "England" and "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks", whilst being distinctly songs by The National, don't gel quite as well with the tone and subjects brought up during the majority of the songs preceding them on the record. It feels like less of an unified whole than previous releases, perhaps due to outside input; the presence of Sufjan Stevens as a guest makes it hard to ignore that the piano intro to "England" sounds uncannily similar to the opening track on Illinois and "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" doesn't have the feel of an epic closer that something like "Mr November" did and I feel that they leave us wanting just a little.

But that is a very small and typically nit picking middle class criticism to level at what is otherwise a beautifully conceived and executed album from a band from whom so much was expected and to give them their credit they have stepped up to the mark to deliver an album that will satisfy existing fans and no doubt ignite fires in the hearts of some new members of the middle classes. If you can’t afford a therapist because you’ve blown you inheritance on good whiskey to numb the problems you know you shouldn’t have, then High Violet is your best alternative.


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Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water.

We open on our hero sitting in a vinyl booth near a window in a local eatery. It's 7:00 AM, and he's just ordered the short stack of pancakes with a side of sausage, as well as an egg-white omelette for the companion for whom he's currently waiting. The lone television mounted high in a corner in his line of sight spews out of the news of the day while he signals the waitress for yet another cup of coffee: Oil is filling the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate with no signs of stopping, Greece's economic floundering is threatening the stability of the entire European Union, and by extension, the markets of the entire world, a failed bombing in Times Square has New Yorkers and Americans in general on edge yet again, racial profiling is now not only legal in Arizona, but mandatory, and Barack Obama is appearing less and less like the savior of the world that we all thought he would be two years prior. It's been raining for the past few days with no hope of letting up, and our hero is growing impatient. The half-awake waitress comes by with the two dishes precariously balanced on her left arm with our hero's fourth cup off coffee in her right hand. After two more minutes of constantly checking the window and picking at his food, our hero sees his companion, Sally, enter the diner and sit down in the seat directly across from him.

SALLY: Sorry I'm late. I had to swing by the administration building and drop off a few more papers by 7:30 to avoid the last of the deadlines. I got there a while ago, but all of the undergrads moving out made it impossible to find a parking space.

JEREMY: It's ok. The food just got here, and I wasn't going to have much time to eat anyway...they get pretty mad if your'e even a minute or two late.

SALLY: Sorry again. (pauses, looks at omelette) You told them egg whites only, right?

JEREMY: I did indeed.

SALLY: This looks kind of yellow...did you check before the waitress left?

JEREMY: I thought it looked fine. I think they're just the yellow bell peppers. It'll be fine.

SALLY: ...Ok, if you say so.

JEREMY: So, the last of the paperwork is in? Everything's set up for school in the fall?

SALLY: Well, I still need to find a roommate to take Lauren's place, but other than that, yeah.

JEREMY: Are you scared yet?

SALLY: Well, after you get shot down from every med school you apply to, starting nursing school is a breeze.

JEREMY: (very short pause, looks up at Sally) You applied to med school?

SALLY: Uh....yeah? I didn't tell you that?

JEREMY: No, you didn't. I mean, I thought it was a bit weird when you applied so late for your schools, but I didn't know you applied to med school. What happened?

SALLY: I didn't get in. Simple as that.

JEREMY: Well...ok, then.

(Elongated pause as the pair quietly begin to eat their barely-touched breakfasts. JEREMY looks at his watch.)

JEREMY: Shit. I've only got 15 minutes to get to work. I'm going to have to take a goddamn cab. (Signals waitress) Can I please get our check?

SALLY: Don't worry, I can give you a ride.

JEREMY: Are you sure? I can get there if I leave you the money for the food and I move at a quick clip.

SALLY: No, it's fine. I was just going to go back to sleep and grab some books later on.

JEREMY: Ok...It just sucks that this was cut so short. Do you want to get some Indian on Saturday?

SALLY: We'll see.

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What you've just read is a slightly fictionalized version of a true event with names changed to protect the innocent. It was a very quick forty minutes or so in my life, and upon reading that, you probably assumed nothing happened. And nothing did...at first. But, as time inevitably shows, those small moments in life that don't appear to be meaningful at the time tend to be the ones we remember most. They end up being the moments we return to when we're sitting alone at 1:30 AM on a Sunday, wondering where life would have taken us had we used a different turn of phrase, or if we'd been born in a different era with different external stressors, or if she'd simply have shown up on time. And above all, those moments in time have become the backbone of The National.

For five albums now, The National have been making music about problems for people with no real problems. I don't mean that as a slight, but it's true: much of the band's back catalogue gives a clinic on the quandaries that beguile those of us in a post-collegiate world. The problems that we face are not truly problems. Even if we lose our jobs, chances are we'll still be able to get a job washing dishes or slinging coffee and day-old biscotti. We don't have to worry about where our next meal is coming from, and we don't have to worry about whether or not the water we have will give us cholera. We have to worry about whether or not we'll get that promotion, existential crises, and the general back-and-forth that comes with any relationship in any stage of such a relationship. High Violet realizes that aspect of life and runs with it. Throughout the album's running time, lead man Matt Berninger takes on such hefty topics as depression, loss of love, war, and even the paranoia of bringing a new life into a horrible, horrible world. Once again - in the long run, these are not real problems. However, Berninger gives his words just the right amount of gravity and pathos to prevent them from becoming laughable, woe-is-me tales of the privileged. Better yet, he never speaks in absolutes, but in loose metaphors that can be interpreted in an almost limitless fashion. Every last song on this album isn't terribly far removed from the subject matter of the band's previous albums, but there's a bleakness over most of High Violet that was only hinted at on Boxer and Alligator. For the first time on an album by The National, I'm not entirely sure everything is going to be alright at the end of the album.

As always, most of the emotional sweep comes from the the guys behind Berninger, and they play an almost equal role in the overcast tone of the album. Nowhere is this literally personified more than in the track "Sorrow" where the titular emotion could very well be a character. The guitars constantly churn around minor chords, playing off the increasingly deft drumwork of Bryan Devendorf and the near omni-present strings draped over the album. The arrangements on High Violet don't stick out as immediately as those on Boxer, but I feel they may ultimately be more rewarding in the long run. Everyone's holding their weight on this album, and they frequently go above and beyond the call of duty with a near-orchestra of backing instrumentalists.

High Violet is the sound of a band hitting their stride. They haven't yet put out their album that will change the world (as the slightly over-wrought closer "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" proves in spades), but they have the ability to make that record. These guys have a sound that feels classic and familiar, but never old or boring. They've got a message that is never easy to understand, but it is damned close to being universal. With High Violet, they've managed to craft an album that's just as much of a near-perfect reflection of the paranoid times we live in as it is a reminder that while we tend to remember the big stuff, we should really keep a closer eye on the little things.

Grade: A