The National "High Violet"
Some music is like comfort food to me. Its familiarity returns me back to safer and simpler times, the aural equivalent of eating a giant bowl of hot mashed potatoes (and if you can manage to do both at the same time, then you’ve got it made)
First time I heard The National’s Start a War from their album The Boxer, I unexpectedly got that same feeling. Lead singer Matt Berninger’s voice hits such deliciously sombre depths. He’s not the only one out there waving the baritone flag but it’s less barky than him from Interpol and more personable than him from Editors. That said, maybe they could get together and form some kind of wildly indie barbershop chorus.
It came as something of a surprise to me that High Violet is the National’s fifth studio album, but isn’t that the way – a song comes to you via some recommendation, you locate it online, thrash it on your iPod, casually Wikipedia the band and it turns out they’ve been trucking away quietly since before you even knew Wikipedia existed.
It’s clear why Bloodbuzz Ohio was chosen for the lead single – it has a confident, weighty melody and makes excellent use of Berninger’s mellifluous vocals. There’s nice melody variation in High Violet – opening track Terrible Love builds to a clattering crescendo while Sorrow layers a soft melody over a tense beat. The lyrics convey gloom and regret – confiding in us that “I can’t fall asleep without a little help”, “I’m sorry I’m such a headache” and “there’s no savin’ anything” is pretty bleak. Yet The National’s distinctive piano layered over full, rich orchestration and of course, Berninger’s warm duvet of a voice and incredibly relaxed delivery somehow make the whole thing seem quite uplifting.
High Violet gets a little bland in places and I wouldn’t say I’m hugely passionate about any specific song. But generally it’s a lovely album, and without damning it too much, it makes perfect background music for numerous situations. They had some sweet helping hands along the way, like wonderboy Sufjan Stevens who contributes vocals to Afraid of Everyone, and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon who lends his voice to likeable album closer Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. Both Vernon and Stevens bear light, supple voices, making them ideal candidates to fight it out to be the fourth person in that indie Barbershop chorus…
