4AD – May 11 2010

The National has never been a flashy band, and if it were even possible, as time goes by they’re getting more modest. It’s a pretty unusual route for a band to take – most musicians start out small and develop their sounds to be bigger, and yet this Brooklyn band has done the exact opposite with excellent results. The band has been around for over a decade now but only started to gain momentum within the last few years with the huge critical acclaim of 2007’s Boxer, and their fifth and latest record will certainly earn them plenty more accolades with its raw and beautiful heart.

There is an overarching theme of hurt and redemption in the album’s lyrics, starting with the repeated refrain “it takes an ocean not to break” in the lo-fi guitar-drenched buzz of ‘Terrible Love’ and heading into the loneliness and fear described in ‘Sorrow’ (“I don’t want to get over you,” croons Matt Berninger), ‘Anyone’s Ghost’ and ‘Afraid of Everyone’, which features the vocals of Sufjan Stevens. Cliché as it may be to express these kinds of feelings lyrically, they feel perfectly truthful in this context – the relative simplicity of the backing music probably has a lot to do with that, as rather than being exorbitant in accompaniment The National opts instead for basic drums and two-layer harmonies that are precise rather than flowery.

There is little pretension here, and the more moody songs are counteracted nicely with numbers like ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, which returns to the ‘Squalor Victoria’-like school of deep vocals contrasted with a constant instrumental roll and some handsome piano flourishes, and ‘England’, in which modest horns and Scott Devendorf’s thoughtful drumming accentuate a tale of a loved one far away. One of the album’s most intensely intimate moments, though, is ‘Conversation 16’, which features an ethereal seven-part choral backing by Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire that sounds a little like it could have been in Edward Scissorhands. Though it’s hard to pick a highlight in an album full of highlights, this would probably be mine – it’s an honest reflection on growing older and keeps coming back to the refrain “I was afraid I’d eat your brains…cause I’m evil”. Berninger became a father prior to the release of this album, and perhaps such reflection is only fitting after such large transitions are encountered in life.

It seems that with every album, The National is getting more and more focused. Berninger has perfected his vocals to a point where it begins to feel like the voice is more of a sonorous instrument than a human facet, and instead of the fairly broad mix of song types found on pre-Boxer albums, High Violet is made up of a rather specific sound that is coherent from song to song. The tunes are tied together more cohesively, which is one of the commonalities between High Violet and Boxer, but the fact that the songs on this record are also somewhat thematically linked means that it also signifies a step up for the band.

If you plan to listen to this album, make sure you are prepared. By the time the album rounds off with the breathy closer ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’, featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, I was completely and utterly drained. This is not an easy listening experience, and yet for anyone who has ever experienced any kind of hurt it is an intensely personal and cathartic one that serves to beautifully illustrate the point that no matter what life throws you, no matter how dark the world may seem, there is always liberation and hope to be found in the form of a song, or eleven.

LISTEN: Bloodbuzz Ohio (mp3)