An elegant indie rock aftertaste that you’re only too happy to listen to.
This surprise album doesn’t come as a complete surprise: When two pre-release songs, “Space Invader” and “Alphabet City,” were released in August, there were already whispers over on Reddit; Someone must have left their Last.fm playing while listening to more new The National songs and eagerly scrobbled the album out into the world. So now it’s official; “Weird Goodbyes”, which was first published in 2022, serves as a link to the FIRST TWO PAGES OF FRANKENSTEIN, which was published less than half a year ago.
Complicated in terms of timeline, but definitely makes sense to place the song with Bon Iver here again. He stumbles a bit over his own feet, which isn’t necessarily a characteristic of this album, but at least shows one of its paths: It’s the case that the songs increasingly look beyond the catchiness that characterized …FRANKENSTEIN; are more complex and have more interest in the inside than the outside view. This culminates in the final “Smoke Detector”. For almost eight minutes, the track drags on, swells, gets loud, while Berninger grumbles: “Sit in the backyard in my pharmacy slippers. At least I’m not on the roof anymore.”
But that doesn’t mean giving up big melodies, never at The National: “Deep End” is likely to become a live favorite with its huge drums; “Crumble” with Rosanne Cash as a featured guest has the gravitas and spirit of I AM EASY TO FIND, released in 2019, and anyone who doesn’t shed a tear when Phoebe Bridgers reports from the bottom of the basement in the title track probably has a heart of stone.