THE NATIONAL - High Violet

In 2003, Britney Spears released an album called In The Zone. It was enough to make one ask: Is there a difference between a zone and a rut? It’s all in the details, I suppose.

It's now 2010, and The National have released a new record, their fifth, called High Violet. But they could've called it In The Zone, because this is a band that is locked in—and from a distance, their 'zone' can certainly sound like a rut. Midtempo, melancholic, and thoroughly steeped in Matt Berninger's black tea baritone, this quintet offers few breaks in style and even fewer surprises. But again, those details... Like a seasoned novelist, The National are masters of them. And High Violet is their Pulitzer Prize-worthy epic.

For many, rock’n’roll exists to create an escape from the ordinary, and it carries out this mandate through endless parties, dangerous and beautiful men and women, idealized vistas and maybe even a dragon or two. The National instead burrow deep into the ordinary, dwelling in it completely until this saturated perspective yields the characters, situations, and nicely-skewed metaphors that make up their songs. Their plain-clothes music succeeds time and time again thanks to the careful presentation of its musicians. All four instrumentalists in this band possess hands blessed with wit and precision, allowing them to construct song after song from every shade of grey.

And then there are the words: Berninger is a particularly astute lyricist, likely knowing that with a voice as monochromatic as his, what he sings better be spectacular. High Violet is maybe his best suite of words yet, dancing and weaving beautifully between the dry and the absurd like a veteran boxer. When in “Conversation 16”, he surprisingly sings: “I was afraid I’d eat your brains”; the effect is both comic and poignant, especially when followed by this swelling, concluding admission: “’Cause I am evil.”

Just as Sloan saw the “good in everyone”, The National see the bad we all share, and—brain-eating zombies aside—they do it without shame or shock. We fall and fail and fail again, but pick ourselves up, because there is still beauty out there to be found.

The pessimist often defends his position with the phrase: “I’m just a realist.” These guys are the ultimate band of realists. Their world is dark, heavy, sometimes scary and very ordinary. You know it well. You’ve just never heard it described, documented or defended as well as this. Or as beautifully.