The National - "Boxer" (May 22) Top 68 Juggernaut!

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Tiny Mix Tapes review

The National
Boxer
[Beggars Banquet; 2007]


Catching The National opening up for The Arcade Fire earlier in the month, a wretchedly drunken woman talking over the clamor of the quintet hollered to her companion, “Well obviously The Arcade Fire will be louder than this.” She probably hasn’t the faintest clue as to just how wrong she was. Or how quickly she’d cause a breathalyzer to malfunction.

The National are the kind of loud that’s more akin to the screaming in your head that won’t subside. They’re the dark side of the law (law in this case referring to relationships, the post-college daze, the working world, a.k.a. ‘the laws of growing up’). Not to say they’ve never had any conventionally loud moments. Admirers of their two previous sets of output, Alligator and Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, have “Available”s and “Mr. November”s to clamor behind. But returning spectators and new ones alike won’t find those moments here in the mellow depths of the Ohio-bred band’s fourth full-length release, Boxer. And they might be tempted to mourn the loss, but it would be a mistake. The National pack quite a wallop into the quiet numbers, and the penchant they’ve built up for pulling on heartstrings is still intact. Call it a somber number, but don’t label it weak. Boxer is the band’s most unified and affective grouping of songs.

Lyrically, something’s dulled within the compositions in the shift from Alligator. It’s probably less of the music’s fault, and the blame is shouldered more to that of the subject matter. It’s exceedingly melancholy and for a reason: the flashes of lyrical brilliance from Alligator rested in the few remaining wistful recollections of youth and past glories. Any hope for a resurgence of vitality has been left behind by the time Boxer hits. And it still hits hard, if not harder, because it has no qualms about its place in the daily grind of the sad, unfair universe. Unlike the casual identifying in Alligator, one would have to be in a pretty dark place to fully relate to Boxer. Vocalist Matt Berninger is battling some grimy, nebulous shit. Empathy is difficult to fully realize in a situation such as this, but the strength of Berninger and the band’s recorded performance is that you can still feel the aches and pains regardless.

(Side notes about borrowing and self-reference: “Slow Show” borrows lyrics from “29 Years,” “Gospel” from “Karen,” “Racing Like A Pro” from “Minor Star of Rome,” “Black Slate” (“Mistaken For Strangers” B-side) from “Keep It Upstairs.” Recurrence and monotony like a bad dream. Moments are blending together not just across the album’s fold, but across the band’s entire oeuvre. A lot can be said for Boxer’s ability to maintain a steady, cohesive glue to its sound while still remaining distinctive. Give them a couple more albums and we’ll be able to trace a broad thread across each gap.)

Funny enough: the gloomier it gets, the sweeter it sounds. The band never makes the heartache feel like a labor. They’ve always been more than proficient, but now they make it appear effortless. Strings, horns, and keys cluster about in the mix, bringing “Fake Empire” and “Ada” to their apexes. Showing up again in “Squalor Victoria” over break-beat piston-pumping, the strings and keys flesh out where the guitars would have been. The old workings are still held down pat: “Apartment Story” is one of the album’s best, static guitar punctuating Berninger’s deep, gravelly ‘la-la’s. Nothing else like “Mistaken For Strangers” exists on the album, and it wouldn’t have been at all out of place on 2005’s gut-punching release.

It’s a parasitic form of music that The National dwells within. It leeches onto the listener’s brain, sticking both of them into permanent symbiosis. It creeps, crawls, and shambles, infecting all in its wake. Zombies couldn’t have created these melodies, but it’s that sort of mindless state it leaves its audience in. And we don’t want brains; we want songful solace. It’s music to get mournful with, but as addicting as car crashes. If The National don’t blow up after this time up to bat, the joke is a bad one. Alligator was a declaration of intent and bombast, Boxer is the refinement of.

[joker]

Out today in the USA!

[joker]

Stylus Magazine Review

The National
Boxer
Beggars Banquet
2007
Rating: A

If you're the type that thinks every album title has its reasons, think back to the titular character of the first Rocky movie. It's easy to forget that even though Rocky Balboa became a hero by taking Apollo Creed's beatings for a full fifteen rounds, he still lost. Since their humble debut in 2001, the National have progressively gotten better at conveying this uneasy sense of moral victory. Even the parts of 2005's outstanding Alligator that did sound like triumph ("All the Wine," "Mr. November") were actually drunken, delusional pep talks going on in the basement of Matthew Berninger's brain. Shit, these guys are such underdogs that their biggest PR coup was playing to half-empty venues because concertgoers rarely stayed past their opening act.

But 2005 was a good time to be associated with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and those who bothered with the headliner created a contact buzz that saw Alligator, a grower if there ever was one, being championed long after its release date and making Boxer one of 2007's most anticipated records. The National is clearly a band on the verge right now, but if they do blow up, it'll be the result of others coming to them instead of the other way around. Boxer is a National album through and through but blessed with a restraint and self-assuredness of a band on top of its game, resulting in a startling masterpiece on par with Turn on the Bright Lights, Bows & Arrows, or any other austere tribute to urban alienation you care to name. Paradoxically, it’s an agoraphobic piece of art that you'll want to share with everyone you know.

It’s easy to tell where Berninger’s head is at from the first hook of the record, one of the many that sound instantly quotable from the moment they hit the microphone. “We’re half awake in a fake empire,” he moans and it’s abundantly unclear whether he’s talking about a doomed human interaction or America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Berninger has a way of conflating both the personal and political to the point where you realize it's foolish to think that the two could ever be separated. “Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war,” he warns but it’s not just a simple metaphor for two parties battling in a blood feud. As the accompaniment becomes more regal and resigned, it becomes evident that there are far darker shades in his choice of words in 2007, i.e, the consideration of just how many casualties you’re willing to endure before you realize a cause is lost.

Due to Berninger’s boozed-out baritone, just about every National review evokes barfly imagery, but most of Boxer can’t even manage to make it out of the house. "Apartment Story." "Guest Room." Indoors music. Those that manage to get out are “mistaken for strangers by your own friends when you pass in the night under the silvery, silvery Citibank lights” before Berninger drops the death blow: “well you wouldn’t want an angel watching over / Surprise, surprise—they wouldn’t want to watch.” Uplifting? Of course not, but Berninger makes it joyously addictive with his expert lyricism. His arsenal is unmatched, alternating literal gut-punches ("Sometimes you bake a cake or something / Sometimes you stay in bed"), skewed imagery ("Everything you say is swirling / Everything you say has water under it"), cheeky romanticism ("Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo for hours / While it sings to itself or whatever it does") and as he puts it, "30% silly lyrics" ("Standing at the punch table swallowing punch"). Look, maybe it isn't Ian Curtis that Paul Banks has been doing a pale imitation of all along.

Small quibbles have been made that Boxer has nothing in the vein of “Abel” or “Mr. November” where the slow brewing anger boils over, but Berninger’s toned-down approach has been more than made up for by his backing band of brothers. The National weren’t exactly sloppy when they tried to bring the rock action, but they certainly could stand to lose a few pounds. Two years of intensive touring has applied the scalpel and their rhythm section is absolutely diesel on the 43 musclebound minutes of Boxer. "Mistaken for Strangers" and "Brainy" are corrosive but ingratiating, backing up Berninger's loopy melodies with little more than spiny, corrugated behind-the-bridge picking and brick-solid godbody drumming from Bryan Devendorf.

Boxer is seamless (particularly during the nearly orchestral final quarter), sympathetic with the band to the point of telepathy. Check out the progression of selling points on "Fake Empire": Sufjan Steven's loping piano chords, Berninger's face-to-face vocal pleadings, a stately bass pulse that runs through the record, the rope-a-dope drum rhythm and finally, exploding into a revelry of horn and strings. Album centerpieces "Green Gloves" and "Slow Show" both start off like the most accurate snapshot of loneliness; Berninger pleads that "all my friends are somewhere getting wasted," before he wishes to get inside their lives and love their loves. And as he acknowledges "now I hardly know them" and ruing a dream he's chased for 29 years, his melancholy becomes more epic and widescreen with expertly employed reverb and subtle feedback.

During a live performance, I heard someone drunkenly remark from the bar, “Hey, is this the band House is in?” With his gangly frame and five-day beard, Berninger does share a certain resemblance to Hugh Laurie's character, as well as being a self-medicating, misanthropic genius with an impeccable taste for poisonous one-liners. But it goes deeper than that—I think back to Derek Miller likening Arcade Fire to “Grey’s Anatomy,” which is becoming more of a tragic truth as they're increasingly relying on transparent emotional manipulation by way of easy melodrama. "House" and the National have become stronger because they put far more trust in the audience. The protagonists may be sad sacks, but they don't beg for your pity or martyrdom on the battlefield of modern love. They realize that, most of the time, there's no voyeuristic appeal in your troubles. It's honest. It's real life.

There's a lot to suggest that these guys will spend the upcoming months jockeying for position in year-end Top Tens and being the latest crush amongst indie-leaning Hollywood celebrities, a potentially worrying development for a band that seems to derive power from a "best kept secret" status. But if 2007 ends up being the year the National finally achieve real triumph, there's no reason to root against it. After a stunning achievement like Boxer, no band deserves it more.

[joker]

Metacritic's #2 rated album of the year!

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Tour Dates:

5-25 Berlin, Germany - Magnet
05-28 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *
05-29 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom #
05-30 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom %
05-31 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom $
06-01 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom @
06-02 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
06-04 Montreal, Quebec - Cabaret !
06-05 Toronto, Ontario - Opera House !
06-06 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick !^
06-07 Chicago, IL - Metro !^
06-08 Minneapolis, MN - 400 Bar !^
06-09 Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon !^
06-11 St. Louis, MO - Duck Room !^
06-12 Louisville, KY - Headliners Music Hall !^
06-13 Atlanta, GA - The Earl !^
06-14 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Music Festival
06-15 Cincinnati, OH - 20th Century Theater !^
06-16 Columbus, OH - The Basement !^
06-18 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom !^
06-19 Pittsburgh, PA - Rex Theater !^
06-20 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club !^
06-21 Boston, MA - Middle East Downstairs !^
06-25 San Diego, CA - Casbah *
06-26 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theater *
06-27 San Francisco, CA - Bimbo's 365 Club *
06-28 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan *
06-29 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards *
06-30 Seattle, WA - Neumos *
07-07 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-08 Naas, Ireland - Punchestown Racecourse (Oxegen Festival)
07-10 Stoke-on-Trent, England - Sugarmill
07-11 Nottingham, England - Rescue Rooms
07-13 Dour, Belgium - Dour Festival
07-14 Herk, Belgium - Rock Herk Festival
07-15 Southwold, England - Latitude Festival
08-17 New York, NY - South Street Seaport +
11-01 Dublin, Ireland - Village
11-02 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
11-03 Sheffield, England - Leadmill
11-04 Manchester, England - Academy 2
11-06 Birmingham, England - Irish Centre
11-07 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire
11-09 Bristol, England - Anson Rooms
11-10 Portsmouth, England - Pyramids
11-11 Paris, France - Elysée Montmartre

* with the Broken West
# with Doveman
% with My Brightest Diamond
$ with Elysian Fields
@ with Philistines Jr.
! with Shapes and Sizes
^ with Talkdemonic
+ with Takka Takka, the Forms

[joker]

MEN AT WORK
TIME OFF GAVE THE NATIONAL NEW MATERIAL TO PLAY WITH
By: Mary Huhn
(NY Post)

May 27, 2007 -- Matt Berninger, the lead singer and songwriter for New York indie group the National insists he couldn't sing or write when he joined his best friend's rock band in college.

"I was lucky to be friends with guys who were amazing musicians," he tells The Post from a tour stop in London. "I couldn't really sing at all."

But maybe he's just being modest. After all, the National just released its third album, "Boxer," and starts five straight sold-out shows, at the Bowery Ballroom tomorrow.

Berninger, 36, got great advice along the way, starting with that college pal - Scott Devendorf, one of his bandmates with the National.

To learn the ways behind a mike, Devendorf advised Berninger to listen to Guided by Voices' Bob Pollard, who "just sings with his heart."

Berninger couldn't play guitar either, so he gravitated to writing lyrics, finding inspiration in the words of Morrissey, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.

"They made me realize rock 'n' roll is an important thing. It has depth. It's not just entertainment.

"All songs need a certain amount of stupidity and sincerity," he says. "You need to find the right balance."

The quintet needed to find some balance, too, after the tour for their sophomore disc, "Alligator."

"We felt worn out and beaten down," Berninger says. "It took a long time to make the new album."

The album's title "Boxer" refers to how the band felt as well as to some of the songs' characters.

"There's the idea of people being on the ropes or struggling to hold onto things," he says.

The Brooklyn-based band was so wiped out after that tour, the members disappeared for a few months to recover themselves.

"We needed to re-energize and live normal lives for a little while, so we had stuff to write about," says Berninger. "We didn't want to write songs about driving around in a van. We needed to water our roots," he says.

Those roots are actually in Cincinnati, but the fivesome, which includes Berninger and two sets of brothers - Scott and Bryan Devendorf and Aaron and Bryce Dessnor - didn't form the National until the late '90s, after everyone had moved to Brooklyn.

The new disc features the Clogs' Padma Newsome, who adds orchestral touches to its rootsy, Britpop, post-punk blend, and Aaron's indie-rocker neighbor Sufjan Stevens.

Even after its completion, Berninger is still working on stabilizing the relationship between rock and a normal life.

"We've always written things about being home and simple problems and relationships and day jobs. For us, it was always an escape from our day job. Now it's turning into a real job. It's a strange shift."

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The Guardian review



New York five-piece the National have been refining a language of exquisite melancholy since they formed in 1999; new album Boxer finds them attaining a rare fluency. For years they have been a cult concern, but tonight a packed Astoria suggests the wider world is finally ready to listen.

The band's forte is pensive, eloquent songs shot through with existential woe, as if life is all too much to bear. Brainy is just one of many songs whose clipped, staccato drums and skeletal rhythms recall the mournful majesty of Joy Division.

Gawky singer Matt Berninger is an awkward presence between songs ("Uh, I'm not too good at talking"), but comes alive amid the fluid intensity of the music. His songs are a series of reproachful admonishments to himself. His rich velvet croon can recall Lloyd Cole, but his solipsism has far more gravitas: the skittering Mistaken for Strangers is so edgy and thin-skinned that you feel you can see the song's nerve endings pulsing beneath its slick surface.

The gently chiming Fake Empire is magnificent, as wry and raw as Leonard Cohen, while Squalor Victoria aches with the doomed romanticism of the Blue Nile. Berninger seems taken aback at the warmth of his reception tonight, but the National's days as US rock's best-kept secret look to be well behind them.

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Memorial Day becomes a "National" holiday on the first of five sold-out shows

Celebrating the release of the highly-anticipated fourth record from the National takes more than just one mere release show. Even two couldn't cut it. Last night (May 28), the six men responsible for one of the most beloved growers in recent memory -- 2005's Alligator -- played the first of five consecutive sold-out nights at New York's Bowery Ballroom to ring in their latest classic, Boxer.

Memorial Day turned to a National holiday the second the lights went out and the packed crowd roared with applause over Bryan Devendorf's slow drum throb of Boxer tune "Start a War." One by one, band members took the stage, filling in clear, deep, heart-crushing noises, and by the time they cut into their second song, most of the crowd was shouting out lyrics along with singer Matt Berninger's devastating baritone on "Secret Meeting."

To close things out, guitarist Aaron Dessner and Berninger took turns leaning down into the crowd for a slamming rendition of "Abel" with nothing held back for the rest of the week. And while these Cincinnati-born brooding rockers now call Brooklyn home, the embracing joy in the Bowery showed that NYC, too, is eager to claim the band as their own.

Pics & more at the link.

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MTV.com:

..and opening at #68 is the National's Boxer, with around 9,400 sold.

[busyboy]

^ Thanks!

[joker]

Awesome debut!

Here's another blurb, this one from Billboard.com:

Meanwhile, New York-by-way-of-Cincinnati indie rock outfit the National scores its first Billboard chart ink with the Beggars Banquet album "Boxer," which debuts at No. 68 with 9,500. "Boxer" also opens at No. 5 on the Top Independent Albums tally. The group is in the midst of a sold-out five-show run at New York's Bowery Ballroom.

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Gigwise feature
Page 1
Page 2

You’re 5. You’re walking along in your scarf and Wellington boots, kicking up a firestorm of autumn leaves when something glints momentarily in the corner of your eye, just holding your attention long enough to prevent you from taking a running jump into that enticingly muddy puddle. You kneel down and thrust your hand into the leaves, rubbish and mud and grab it. You open your hand. It’s a penny, a little dulled by the elements, but a penny nonetheless. Your penny, your treasure, your secret keepsake.

This is The National. They won’t dazzle you from the outset; they’ll enchant and entrance you, enticing you with all the splendour of their 2005 masterpiece, ‘Alligator’. Let ‘Abel’ beckon you through or ‘Looking For Astronauts’ gently lure you in, and at the point where you’re totally absorbed, that’s when they lock the gate behind them. They should have made the soundtrack to ‘The Secret Garden’…

“If we could make the musical equivalent of ‘Eternal Sunshine from the Spotless Mind’ then we’d be really happy – it was such a beautiful film.”
Well…close enough.
From his window, Aaron Dessner, guitarist and unsurprisingly pleasant interviewee, is overlooking the ever bustling Tottenham Court Road and the much fabled Astoria in which The National are playing later that week. On the band’s last visit to the UK, they played to a triumphant and ludicrously packed out KOKO and a year on, the band are rightly gracing the bigger stages their music deserves much to the excitement of Aaron.

The National - Boxer“I never thought we would play the Astoria. I’ve been there once before and it was just an amazing, huge place with a lot of history. It’s a little frightening because it’s an important venue but we’re excited about headlining it and flattered we have the opportunity to play there,” he says. A brief stop off as part of a considerable two-month transatlantic tour, despite having to traipse through most of central Europe as well as their intensive stateside dates, they’ve managed to pencil in a five night marathon at the Bowery, NY as well as a slot supporting the Arcade Fire. It’s quite the workload. “We’re supporting the Arcade Fire in May, and then we get a little time off before we do a couple of European shows – London, Paris, Berlin – then a big US tour and back to Europe for festivals. It’s around two months so it’ll be pretty intense and it’ll take a lot out of us.”

For many bands, venue upgrades typically denote success and/or progression and while The National are content to play the bigger venues, the disconnection from the humbler venues is a transition that doesn’t always sit well. “There’s some big venue’s that just don’t feel right and it’s hard to get connected to the audience. I think in England – even the bigger venues – are still fun to play there even though they’re pretty large. We prefer playing the intimate venues. In New York we chose to play the Bowery Ballroom, which has about a 600 capacity, but we’re doing it for five nights in a row. It is exciting to see the audience grow,” Aaron explains.

Adopted New Yorkers transplanted from Cincinnati and Ohio, (Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, and Scott Devendorf), The National released ‘Alligator’ to a swathe of critical acclaim that saw a mass of new admirers stumble wide-eyed and open hearted into their grandiose, introspective world of observation and mild fantasy. “I think Alligator was definitely our breakthrough. We loved the album when we finished it, but at first it was very quiet and took a lot of time for the response and for it to creep out there and become this underground success. It was mostly word of mouth and people writing about it on the internet and we’re really grateful it became this gradual, transforming process for us as a band - it enabled us to play to bigger audiences all over the world.”

The success of the album only served to heighten the collective external pressure on the band and it’s a pressure that Aaron is only too aware of. Still, it seems there’s no higher benchmark than a personal one regardless of commercial pressure. Talk about a rock and a hard place…
“We only really felt pressure in an internal sense within the band because we just wanted to make another album we believe in. We did believe in Alligator but I think for a long time we struggled to realise that it was an album with a shelf life and something we could stand behind. We’re not delusional; we have a lot of self-awareness. Sometimes we’re too hard on ourselves and that’s the internal pressure. There’s always going to be some commercial pressure in the back of our minds: ‘will people enjoy this? Can we play it live?’ But it’s never going to be enough to influence because it’s hard enough to get five people to collaborate and make a song without worrying about what the rest of the world thinks.”

“We don’t have a conscious thing of ‘let’s reinvent The National’s sound’ it just felt appropriate. We’re not obsessed with reinventing ourselves but we’re aware of repeating ourselves. To do that, we probably could have written songs similar to Alligator but I think it would have been a big mistake. Initially it might be exciting to people attached to those songs but repeating the same formulas that were successful before just makes it banal and safe and almost cowardly.”

It’s quite the statement of intent and it’s their critical, hard-edged ideology that has served them well once again with the impending release of follow up album ‘Boxer’. Needless to say, The National consider themselves their own audience, which means they only have to pander to themselves…and maybe each other? “It’s hard to say because we made the album we wanted to make and made what we feel is our best work to date. We think it’s a beautiful, adventurous timeless album and we’re hoping it finds an audience that enjoy it. The most important thing is we’re still really excited about it and I think that brings the songs to life live and the expectation for us is to go out and perform them live as well as we always have. I don’t really have commercial expectations it’s really hard to say anymore what an album will do – we don’t try and write hit songs.”

‘Boxer’ bears all the brooding, intricate hallmarks of its predecessor in that it will just as effortlessly steal your heart, and while it treads similar ground to ‘Alligator’, there’s an underlying sense of anxiety that wasn’t so prevalent before and, as Aaron explains, is indicative in the album title. “It’s kind of murky like Alligator was, but there’s a lot of internal struggles going on with the characters that are in the album. Issues like identity, relationships, anxiety over political situations, and the desire to escape – there’s a lot of tension going on. When we were thinking of titles the idea of this boxer who was down on his luck and a bit beat up, for this group of songs it just felt appropriate. There’s also some boxing references in the lyrics, they’re pretty obscure, but there’s a character who leans on the wall and the wall leans away, that’s kinda like a boxer leaning on the ropes. There are lots of little things like that. We also like one-word titles and it looks cool,” he adds.

Berninger’s poetic, muted flamboyance seems to come alive with the various characters and guises he’s portraying. While ‘Boxer’ deals with issues covered on its predecessor (love, life, politics), their meanings, or at least their composition, seem to have taken a more abstract, deliberately colourful route. “There’s definitely autobiographical elements to Matt’s lyrics but they’re meant to be characters within the songs and I think the inspiration for some of the songs come from his personal life but I think there’s a fantasy element to it as well like ‘diamond slippers’ and ‘bluebirds on our shoulders’. There’s definitely a surrealist quality as well. Matt’s personal life does play into the songs but he also writes about more than one thing at once so a song can be about domestic life and politics and personal anxieties. It’s a mix of subjects and there’s usually a subtext to it usually. He’s not strictly a narrative writer; he’s sort of associative where he’s pulling together images and ideas from different places and combining them in ways so that they can be interpreted ambiguously. He’s very ambiguous about what details in the songs are personal – he’ll never admit to any of them,”

Not even to you?
“We all know him so well so I could probably tell you, but sometimes he doesn’t even he know himself because he’s in that fantasy state when he’s writing. The lyrics can be literal, ridiculous and surreal. We all read a lot and respect all those classic songwriters and bands who have a real craft in what they do and a longevity. We all love The Smiths and Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, kind of the giants we grew up with. There’s a lot of avid readers in the band and I know Matt was reading a lot of Jonathan Ames and books like ‘Enormous changes at the last minute’ by Grace Paley and think he was drawing a lot from those.” Aaron adds.

Although orchestral dramatics were a feature of ‘Alligator’, they form a hefty backbone throughout ‘Boxer’ – an element born out the band’s desire to experiment and deviate from the conventional band set up.
“The fact we use orchestral elements is simply the product of collaborating with Padma Newsome - who’s an Australian composer and kinda the sixth member of the band – and my brother’s a classically trained musician outside of the band. We’re able to draw from instruments that aren’t just bass, two guitars and drums, even though that’s how we play live for the most part. There’s subtlety to the lyrics and what Matt does is definitely one of the elements that defines us,” he says.

“We want to play songs that grow and don’t have a shelf life. We like the musical behaviour of our songs to have a bit of depth to them and I think that’s pretty elusive for us. I guess you could say we’re brooding, literate rock or something…although I don’t like the word literate, it sounds pretentious. It comes with experimentation but it’s not like we set out to make it a bold experimental album at all, it’s just the choices we make aren’t usually the obvious ones. It’s an aspect of our music we try and seek out.”

Let’s hope more people do the same, but in the meantime, anybody want a penny?

[busyboy]

Guest List: The National

Guest List by Matt Berninger

Welcome to the latest edition of Pitchfork's Guest List. Each week, we ask one of our favorite artists to fill us in on what they've been up to lately: which tracks they can't stop spinning, what books they can't put down, and what new bands they've caught on tour. This week it's the National's Matt Berninger, who recalls his favorite Activision game from childhood, tells us the best record shop to pick up half a dozen copies of Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, and wonders what planet Grizzly Bear is from.

>> Favorite New Songs of the Past Year

Beach House: "Master of None"

Andrew Bird: "Yawny & Apocalypse"

Peter Bjorn & John: "Up Against a Wall"

>> Favorite Older Songs at the Moment

Paul McCartney: "Every Night"

>> Favorite New Band

Grizzly Bear
They sound like they're from a parallel world where everybody's got codeine in their blood.

>> Favorite Song Ever

R.E.M.: "Fall On Me"
It's from Life's Rich Pageant. Not sure what most of the words are, but its effortless lilting drudge always sticks with me.

>> Best Recent Concert

Menomena, Bowery Ballroom, NYC
Watching three guys sing and play nine instruments and still sound smooth was an uncommon thrill.

>> Last Great Film I Saw

Children of Men

>> Last Great Book I Read

Joan Didion: Play It As It Lays
Creepy, sexy and heartbreaking.

>> Favorite Record Shop

Shake It Records, Cincinnati
I bought copies of [Sufjan Stevens'] Illinois for my whole family.

>> Best Purchase of This Year

A massage chair, which I found at a hardware store. They had it on display when I was shopping for paint.

>> Best Thing I Did This Year

My brother moved to New York City, and we got to shoot a video in his apartment.

>> Favorite Venue

Bowery Ballroom, NYC
The Bowery just has a nice staff of people, and it's always a great environment to see a show, or to play.

>> Favorite TV Show at the Moment

Lately, its been The Larry Sanders Show. Dark honest humor. The DVD has a special feature with Garry Shandling literally sparring in a gym with Alec Baldwin. I'm not sure if they're acting but they don't seem to like each other and its very uncomfortable to watch. If they are acting then they're both geniuses.

>> Favorite Video Game

"Castlevania" on Activision beat me as a child. I don't really play video games anymore.

>> Favorite Radio Station

WOXY

>> My Ringtone

It's just the standard T-Mobile noise. I haven't figured out how to change it. But it's usually just on vibrate anyway.

[joker]

Bunch o' pics from The National's five night stand at Bowery Ballroom (May 28, 2007 - June 1, 2007).

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The National turns to the deep and dark

June 3, 2007
BY ERIN PODOLSKY
(Detroit Free Press)

"We're not your spring chicken hot rock stars in white pants or whatever," says Bryce Dessner, the guitarist for indie rock darlings the National.

The members range in age from 31 to 36, and they've been around enough to learn how they operate best, both individually and, more importantly, as a unit.

A band of Midwesterners formed in Brooklyn, the National marries spare yet warm guitars and basslines with singer and lyricist Matt Berninger's slow words of disaffection and discontent. And while Berninger might reference urban American touchstones -- an unreturned wave at an ATM in the unusually uptempo single "Mistaken For Strangers" is just one -- his themes are personal and universal.

Likewise, the National's profile is only growing larger as the newly released fourth album "Boxer" collects critical accolades, and the band embarks on a nationwide tour that just included five consecutive sold-out nights at New York's legendary Bowery Ballroom.

All the members hail from Cincinnati; besides Dessner and Berninger, the lineup includes Bryce's twin brother Aaron Dessner (bass), and brothers Bryan and Scott Devendorf, on drums and guitar respectively. The National hasn't been to Detroit since 2004, when it played to tiny crowds at the Lager House. When it hits the Magic Stick on Wednesday, it will likely play to more Detroiters than in all of the previous Motown shows combined.

Breakthrough album "Alligator" wasn't released until 2005, so Detroit has a lot of catching up to do. "Boxer," fleshed out with keys, strings and a few horns, is just as brilliantly haunting. Berninger and this band of brothers are headed for the dark center of the woods. For them, it's the right place, even if the songs' characters never quite know where they should go, or if they're satisfied where they are.

"This is the first record we've ever made where there were no old songs," says Bryce Dessner. "I think it ended up being a good thing because the album has more of a continuous mood to it.

"We're always trying to push ourselves musically to do something new. Certainly some of the arrangements are more adventurous."

Reaching beyond the typical guitars-bass-drums setup wasn't much of a stretch, even ignoring the involvement of pals Padma Newsome, an accomplished composer and former Yale classmate, and Sufjan Stevens, the Michigan-born multi-instrumentalist best known for his ambitious project to write an album about each of the 50 states. (Stevens and Newsome helped with strings and piano on the album.)

Dessner spends as much time with the National as he does doing classical guitar concerts or working with Newsome in their band Clogs.

But sometimes, with a guitar, enough is enough. "The guitar leads to a certain kind of music. We write most of our music with guitars so we decided let's try something a little different. Writing with guitars is great and it's a big part of what our sound is, but at a certain point it becomes limiting," he says.

That's not to say that a piano isn't limiting either, at least when it comes to touring. "We kind of were freaking out a little bit about how we were actually going to perform these songs, because we didn't want to have a digital piano," Dessner says. "So I went and researched finding the smallest possible piano I could find. Up in Spanish Harlem I found a 64-key mini-upright that is beautiful and I bought it."

After a trial run at a few dates with the Arcade Fire, though, the band realized it wasn't going to work. "It was great but it's hard to move, it's really heavy." Dessner and his mates will hit Detroit with a lightweight Yamaha. No doubt their marriage of word and sound will more than make up the difference.

[joker]

The National at Johnny Brenda's (Philly)

(pics and downloads at link)


No one would've blamed The National for leaving their A game at home in Brooklyn when they came to Johnny Brenda's for the Philly stop on their current tour.

After all, the critically acclaimed New Yorkers by way of Cincy had just completed a 5 night sold out residency at the Bowery Ballroom in New York and their latest album, Boxer, has been lauded by pretty much anyone with an internet connection.

This is a band on a roll, rolling into Philly. To play a venue that holds 250 people. For one night.

Ok, so it WAS sold out, like, ages ago. But still. Philly can't hang with New York.

So, The National could've phoned this one in.

But they didn't. Not even close.

For a solid 90 minute set, Matt Berninger led The National through a 90 minute set that was empirical evidence of why this band is one of indie rock's most respected bands. The set list drew generously from the band's discography.

According to Music Snobbery, the setlist was as follows:

* Start A War
* Brainy
* Secret Meeting
* Baby, We'll Be Fine
* Slow Show
* Racing Like a Pro
* Lit Up
* Squalor Victoria
* Mistaken for Strangers
* Wasp Nest
* The Geese of Beverly Road
* Daughters of the Soho Riots
* ADA
* Apartment Story
* Fake Empire
* Mr. November
Encore:
* Abel
* About Today

The band is much more powerful live than they are on tape. While the studio albums are very good, they take it up a notch live. Berninger's baritone vocals, melancholy lyrics and soft head punches anchor the band, but the contributions come from everywhere. Drummer Bryan Devendorf is a composed force on the kit, and many of the most memorable moments from a National song include his stick work. The wall of guitar and bass comes courtesy of the Brothers Dessner (Aaron and Bryce) as well as Devendorf's brother Scott.

The most exciting musical displays of the night were plucked from the hands of the 6th (unnamed) National member who must be just touring with the band. I really was worried that this guy was going to suffer a stroke in the midst of his frenetic, 90 mph violin playing. He jumped back and forth between 2 violins, piano and various other instruments. He provided all of the extras that accounted for about 8 other musicians on the album.

The highlight of the night for came at the end of the first set as the band went back to back on Fake Empire and Mr. November. Berninger was electric during the latter as he screamed with everything he had that "I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November!" It was such a great way to end the show, I thought for sure there wouldn't be an encore, but the band did come out for 2 more songs, "Abel" and "About Today". The final 2 songs ended with vintage National, introspective and thoughtful.

Berninger was pretty talkative and cool with the audience, even with the unfortunate presence of the folks who feel the need to yelp at inappropriate times or try and create conversations with the band where none need to exist. I still to this day do not get that.

Berninger commented on Johnny Brenda's, saying that the venue may be "new" but it looked old and reminded him of a small Radio City. Last night was also my first visit to the JB's, and I'll definitely be back. What a nice, small room. Great acoustics, although I could use something other than microbrews behind the bar. How about a case of Miller Lite for us losers?

There is definitely a sizable population of talking heads, bloggers and fans who do not like this band. The comments of stereogum's review of one of the Bowery shows is littered with hate for the band (plus plenty of responses telling those folks to shut the fuck up). Brian seemed less than impressed with their opening set for Arcade Fire in May. He didn't even bother to mention it in his review. Even our buds at Badminton Stamps delivered a glancing blow in the band's direction on Friday:

Yeah, you could go check out The National on Saturday night. But really, JB's three nights in a row? And really, The National? Really?

I get the ambivalence; even the hate. The National ain't for everyone. It's brooding, slow building stuff that can take time to grow on you.

After initially meeting The National tunes that I first heard with a take or leave it attitude a few years ago, I definitely align myself as a fan.

Last night's show only further sealed the deal for me.

One note about Bear In Heaven, the opening band from Brooklyn. Drop the lead singer and the band has a future. The drummer was unbelievably good and the rest of the band was decent. The best parts of every song were when this Roger Daltrey at age 22 look-a-like started wailing. Literally.

[joker]

Video: The National: "Mistaken for Strangers" / "Apartment Story" / "Slow Show" / "Start a War" (live)

[areyoureadytojump]

6/23 chart

156 NATIONAL BOXER 5,088 20,064

[oscillations.]

Seeing them tomorrow live. Not even a huge fan, but it's a free show & I know I will regret it if I don't see them. They'll probably be one of the most imporant bands of all time or something, and I'll have to tell people I missed seeing them gratis, the same way one of my teachers decided NOT to go to Woodstock '69 because he decided to go fishing instead. I won't let that happen to me.