The National

So following Sufjan with the National seemed like the most logical thing to do, because as I mentioned at the end of the Sufjan post, he played piano on two tracks on The National's most recent full album, Boxer: Racing Like A Pro and Ada.  


Now, I've primarily run across two reactions when talking to people about The National.  People seem to either love them, or not see what all the fuss is about.  I'd like to go out on a limb and suggest that this might be because of the rather unique voice of lead singer Matt Berninger-a deep baritone that definitely doesn't sound like most other voices out there that I've heard.  I did a quick scan of how people have tried to describe it, and found some pretty entertaining ones, including "dark chocolate richness", "chocolate and wool", and multiple types of whiskey.  I think he sums it up best himself when he characterizes his voice as "anthemically sad".  


This certainly seems to be the case throughout Boxer, which was the first album of theirs I listened to on the recommendation of a friend (who is too busy with med school/globetrotting to have a blog to link to).  It actually took around two years for me to give the album a serious listening; luckily a not-so-fortunate sequence of events one late spring gave way to a summer full of redoubling efforts to find new music.  Boxer also runs quite the gambit of angsty emotions, which fit my general mood perfectly: from Fake Empire ("turn the light off/say goodnight/no thinking for a little while/let's not try to figure out everything at once") to Slow Show ("I leaned on the wall/the wall leaned away"), to Start A War, which I might have allowed to shape my thinking on real life a bit too much ("walk away now, and you're going to start a war").  


In terms of instrumentation, The National sticks to a basic piano/guitar/bass, with the occasional horn section on Fake Empire or strings on About Today, another one of my favorites (you'll start to pick up a theme: use of string instruments increases the probability that I will like a song about 3x).  Most of the songs on later albums trend towards the mellow side, although Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers includes a couple tracks worth of Berninger yelling (Slipping Husband), something that sounds odd to me since I picked them up relatively late in the game.  


The National is popular enough to have been on TV and soundtracks on multiple occasions, including a spot on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night to debut a song from their new album High Violet, set to be released in May.  It's called Terrible Love, and I like what I hear so far.  Definitely an album I'll be picking up once it comes out.  


Still haven't heard enough? Check out Apartment Story, Daughters of the Soho Riots, and Mistaken for Strangers. 


Later!