A new feature on the Vine, 'First Listen' ruminates on forthcoming records we're excited about - penned well before their release date and whilst still drunk with the confusing hot flush of first impressions.

The National
High Violet
Release date: May 7th 2010



I had no idea how much I was looking forward to the new The National record until I heard this. High Violet, the long-suffering New York bands fifth album is their first since finding wider popularity with 2007's uniformly excellent Boxer. And the band's first since being elevated to statesmen of sorts for the Brooklyn indie rock scene - both by the bands involvement with the 2009 Dark Was The Night compilation (read our interview with that LP's curator and National guitarist Bryce Dessner here) as well as just wider international success.

But The National are no psychedelic, freak-folk headband wavers. (And anyway, they've always seemed more concerned with the glass columns of Manhattan than that communal enclave over the river.) It's in this regard that the band have managed an improbable feat; taking their well-sculpted but traditional talents - moody indie-rock and a literary singer - and fashioning an art of their own. For fans with high hopes, know this: High Violet builds on all the good bits from the band's recent history as well as introduces new colours - sweeping orchestral sounds, home recording plinks and plunks, layered backing vocals and looping beds of swelling synths and strings. The result sees them leap-frog those passing Interpol comparisons (the two bands are friends as well as share a producer) and begin to rival the wider emotional reach of current "orchestral-indie" overlords, Arcade Fire. Not to mention punching tickets on their own fan club.

Always at the heart of the bands appeal, frontman Matt Berninger has turned in another great collection of fantastic lyrics. He's still ruminating on the fine line between nocturnal fantasy and the dull reality of being another dude wandering Gotham. ("Go out at night with your headphones on / again / walk through the Manhattan valleys of / the dead" - 'Anyone's Ghost') Still got his humour gland as well: ("I was afraid / I'd eat your brains / because I'm evil" - 'Conversation 16') While Berninger remains on point, the most notable shift for The National is the blanket use of orchestral elements throughout. The Dessner brothers guitar strums have largely been replaced by swelling tonal movements; far more so than on both the crisp Boxer and the more nuanced Alligator (2005). Nearly every song here has a swelling bed of strings or synths or brass, or at very least those  reverbed drenched guitars. It gives a depth of field not present on their recent work, but also more layers to wade through. Some of which are impenetrable. Whether this is the bands attempt to "go big" to match their new gig slot status or a sign of their newfound confidence and abilities, I'm not sure. But it stands as both a blessing and a curse.

High Violet was recorded in parts by Boxer producer Peter Katis (really best known for his work with Interpol, especially Turn On The Bright Lights) and it's the songs with his sonic fingerprints that hit hardest. Elsewhere the production has been handled by the band themselves, and for every interesting detour through choices that could only be made by a a group fluffing about at home, elsewhere songs struggle to emerge from the murk. Lovely as it may be, brooding tune 'Lemonworld' near sags under the layers of blunt-edged production choices. Perhaps the most tragic example is opener 'Terrible Love'. When the band debuted it a few weeks back on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", the tune read as a cracking, tight epic. Here it goes entirely missing, passing by in a deeply reverbed blur of instruments struggling to be heard. Berningers vocals barely cut through, piano and guitars are favoured over drums (the greatest crime - after all, the bands secret weapon is the intricate patterns of Bryan Devendorf) and the resulting miasma falls well short of that punchy live version.


The National - 'Terrible Love' live on Jimmy Fallon

But that's the bad news. And if "too much reverb" was ever a problem for fans of The National then there's no way you would've made it this far. So yes, it's the crisp Katis numbers that make the album highlights: 'Anyone's Ghost' could've been a Boxer keeper, a gorgeous, propulsive sister to that album's 'Fake Empire'. Perhaps the best song on the album - and a sure new addition to their eventual Best Of -  'Afraid of Everyone' reminds of Radiohead's sweetest chord cycles; the building anthem looping upon itself, creating tension until the band finally finds a major chord to release upon. String beds, oboe sounds, guitar squeaks and cooing vocal loops gather (another new album feature throughout), as Berninger nails that odd aching duality of trailing away from adolescence: "With my kid on my shoulder, I try / not to hurt anybody I like / but I don't have the drugs to sort it out".

The National have never been this popular before. Berninger himself told me how odd that feeling was, out on the back steps of The Corner Hotel in Melbourne in 2007 after my then band had had the good fortune to support them. Watching the New Yorkers side of stage then, I was struck at how the band teetered on the brink of being any old run of the mill indie-guitar group, and yet watched as they drew away to achieve an emotional heft utterly unique to this otherwise nondescript five-piece. They made it look easy.

High Violet is a massive achievement for The National; a record that embraces the lessons learned from Boxer, whilst managing to forge a detailed new road in this ever brooding, shape-shifting city they inhabit. If not, created.