The National
I was going to write about how the recently touted idea of The National as the next band about to leap the great divide into arena rock is, without wishing to offend them, on so many levels laughable. By any definition they contain none of the required ingredients.
I was also going to write about the fact that whilst I’ll concede that their songs can indeed be anthemic, they’re also introspective, often inscrutable and yet somehow manage to make a personal connection of the type not normally associated with arena rock.
A rather impressive appearance at Glastonbury along with this soaring to number three in the UK album charts (so I’m told) rather buggered much of that theory. Clearly inscrutable and introspective have come on in great strides.
So, me and The National. Was I there at the start? Nope. For me it all started with Boxer back in 2005. Having worked my way through the back catalogue I’d say that was the right place but I’d also say it was a damn hard album to get into and I’ve heard plenty express the view that Boxer, its more immediate but patchier successor, was the better of the two.
Luckily for me in 2005 my son had just been born and a form of new parent madness had descended. I have a vague recall that reading one whole column (and I do mean just a single column) of The Guardian about a week after he was born felt like a major turning point in the sanity stakes. This of course was completely wrong but nevertheless.
Any music fan with a newborn knows how difficult it can be to find even a sliver of time, and wide awake time at that, to listen to even a few songs. Enter the newly purchased “Alligator” and the hour between 5:30 and 6:30 in the evening when his lordship would settle tiredly on my right shoulder and I would ease the slow reluctant path to his sleep via wandering round the lounge in a fairly tight circle for most of the hour to the sounds of my new National album.
In retrospect I’m not sure such young ears should have heard certain lyrics but what the heck. He slept. I pirouetted around the lounge and that was about as good as it got really. “Alligator” was not an easy album to get into and then one day, as with all the best things, it just clicked. It’s not an album to dip into. Although tracks like “Lit Up” and “Daughters Of The Soho Riots” are worlds apart in tempo they share a sound; a vision and a lyricism that bites deep and stays there. I wish I could say the same for “Boxer”. Its individual tracks contain many highlights but songs sound unfinished in places and tail off hesitantly; the production has more clarity but less depth and as an album it doesn’t quite hang together as a whole.
That brings us to this then. This, I have little hesitation in saying, is one of my favourite albums of this year. It’s an album ludicrously packed with hooks to the extent that at first it just seems like a bunch of incongruous stuff thrown together but, to be honest, the more I play it the more it seems obvious that this is what should happen when the left-field goes mainstream and gets it right.
The production is again odd. It’s flat and I can’t make my mind up whether it’s lacking in detail or simply overwhelmed with it. Either way ultimately it doesn’t stand in the way of the songs and that’s probably just as well because this is the best collection of songs The National have put together since “Alligator”. It’s much more of an album than “Boxer” but the highlights are probably even more.
“Terrible Love” is an odd starter with its apparently discordant guitars and jarring rhythms that never quite come together and yet never quite fall apart. As ever with The National I have no idea what it’s about and the lyrics are often bizarre – “I’m walking witb spiders” indeed – but really, who cares?
The first thing that strikes you, as with “Terrible Love”, is that its initially the tracks that don’t sound like The National that keep you coming back for more even when the ones that do don’t appear to be quite cutting it. Just as well really because over time you realise just how ludicrous that was. Sure, the likes of “Sorrow” and “Runaway” sound “like” the National but at this point in time they haven’t outstayed their welcome and frankly sounding like themselves is a good thing. I’m sure there may be a tipping point on that, and “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” veers perilously close to parody, but we’re not there yet and if you can’t connect with the likes of “Conversation 16″ or “Little Faith” then just what sort of an emotional connection to rock music is it that you are looking for?
Am I over enthusing? Well, possibly. The aforementioned last track “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” has another haunting melody but barely escapes soft rock triteness by the skin of its teeth with some epic repetition. Good that we stopped there or it might have ended in tears. Suffice to say I found myself on how The Triffids sounded when it all went wrong. If you know the reference then you’ll get the idea. Epic when it;s epic is fantastic. Epic when it tips over is sickly.
Ditto the much raved over “England”. Some would have this as the best thing they’ve ever done. I don’t think so. Is it good? Yes. Is it great? No. Two warning signs at the end of an album that restores your faith in the ability of music to not only reveal its charms upon repetition but whose charms are enhances by repetition.
Before I get too wary over those two tracks though perhaps better to dwell on “Anyone’s Ghost”, which would not have been out of place on “Alligator”; “Little Faith”, which is epic in all the right ways (phew) and the previously mentioned “Runaway” which possibly does stand as one of the finest things they’ve ever done. My take on it moved from slight to repetitive to haunting and epic over about three weeks. Suffice to say I kept on coming back to it. I already know that the same applies to this album as a whole.
