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The National - “BOXER”

May 26th, 2007

The National’s songs embrace a frame of mind that may be more familiar from movies than from daily life: a bleary urban predawn in which a deadpan antihero drifts among alienation and yearning, cynicism and vulnerability. “You were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now,” Matt Berninger sings in his resigned, morose baritone. “Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war.”

Ominous ambiguity fills the National’s fifth album, “Boxer.” In “Brainy,” Mr. Berninger sings, “Think I’d better follow you around/You might need me more than you think you will.” He could be a guardian or a stalker, but behind him, the music rises reassuringly, switching from a dark minor-key verse to major-key affirmations.

The National got started in Cincinnati before moving to Brooklyn, but its music looks toward Britain. With a steady eighth-note pulse, uninflected drumbeats and layers of guitars entwined around Mr. Berninger’s midtempo melodies, its song structures revive the 1980s mope-rock of New Order and the Cure. Yet the National’s songs aren’t aimed at clubland; they’re elaborated with orchestral brasses and strings that make them weightier and more inward-looking, dissolving 1980s nostalgia in the music’s sheer intricacy.

There are verbal nuggets throughout the album — “You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends” — but it’s not the antihero sentiments that make the songs memorable; it’s the methodical yet obsessive patterns that frame them.
The National is to play five sold-out shows May 28 to June 1 at the Bowery Ballroom.
Aug 17 at South Street Seaport, NYC
-JON PARELES

Taken from: nytimes.com

Entry Filed under: Reviews