I can still remember the first time I listened to The National. It was far too early in the morning, I was working on Irish breakfast TV (Ireland AM) and I decided to see what the internet hype was about. Even listening to Boxer in less than ideal conditions, on the shitty PC speakers that were in the office, Fake Empire stood out immediately. But the rest of the album left me cold. I sniffly dismissed it as more Pitchfork hype and got on with my morning.
But something called me back and with each play another song would jump out at me and within a few days I realised that this was going to be an album that would stay with me over the years.
But the more observant of you will notice that I’m not here to talk about Boxer. I mean, I did, I wrote a whole post about it, but it was lifeless. It felt like an obligation rather than full of the passion I hope this project shows, and I couldn’t work out why. This was such an important album to me, but then I realised I’d written about the wrong record. I should have been writing about Alligator.
You see, Boxer is great, but it has all the rough edges sandpapered off the National’s sound. Here, the band still show their teeth when needed and it makes all the difference.
After two albums that failed to set the world alight, the band came into their own with the Cherry Tree ep, an amazing step up in song writing. Unfortunately that got ignored too. Then they released Alligator and while it didn’t do much, it started to get the band noticed, and so it should. This is an incredible album, pretty much an embarrassment of riches, the perfect mix of their more moody sound while keeping that edge I was talking about.
Matt Berninger’s baritone is one the most arresting things about this band. His voice and delivery could make the phone book sound riveting but on Alligator his lyrics are at his peak of surreal and profound. From singing about how “It’s a common fetish for a doting man to ballerina on the coffee table cock in hand” to referencing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, “I think I’m like Tennessee Williams. I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in”. He certainly leaves an impression.
The album opens strong with Secret Meeting, a big, bold number. That first drum beat striking before the song proper starts is a great way to grab your attention. The band is here and you’re going to listen. The band cover a lot of ground over the album, the more rocky songs like Lit Up sit shoulder to shoulder to the gentle tenderness of The Daughters of the SoHo Riots, while All The Wine wine has more swagger than a hip hop album. And despite it becoming a “you and me against the world” song, which is something I love, I’d have been happier if it stayed the greatest indie “fuck you, I’m amazing” song of all time.
City Middle is one of my favourite songs where Berninger repeats the lines “You were thinking out loud, you said “I’m overwhelmed” which has unfortunately become a mantra that I’ve been singing to myself over the past year, but at least it sounds amazing.
I’ve been put off Mr November because of its connections to the Obama campaigns but I was being daft, it’s still such a great song and full of such great lines. (I’m not sure why that put me off the song, but it did). It’s another braggadocious song from a band that gets a lot of stick for being boring, but the delivery of “I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders” is fantastic.
It’s easy to forget just how exciting the National were. The run from the Cherry Tree to High Violet is one of the best any band has managed but over the years I’ve really fallen out with the band. I haven’t bothered to listen to the last few albums they’ve released. I grew so disenchanted with them that I even stopped listening to the albums I did like because everything they touched seemed to turn to beige. But, yet again, this project has helped me reconnect with some loved music that I’ve been neglecting over the years.
The ways of exile 