The National - Trouble Will Find Me

It was my favorite of 2013 for sure.

when I asked her why she replied "They romanticize the ordinary."

this is okay but the correct answer is bryan devendorf

New album soon?

Sleep Well Beast. pic.twitter.com/3IpxpigJlj

— The National (@TheNational) May 9, 2017

promising tease

New album September 8th

New track now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O6duDDkhis

guitar solo!

That was a shock! Is it their first?

the title drop is a bit clumsy but I like everything else about this

That's excellent.

damn what a band

The title sounds like an Adam Curtis film.

This new track fuckin' rules.

Bought tickets for the London Monday gig. Anyone else going?

Not for £40 I ain't.

the local "event" show is over 100 bucks, ick.

Anyway, new song and album. 16 tracks on this motherfucker

https://youtu.be/lBcVrb-snPk

new song sounds exactly like what i expected the last record to sound like. cautiously hyped

the STRINGS, wow

yeah, when they said SWB was going to be "electronic" and "experimental" or whatever I was surprised at how conventional it ended up sounding, this is a little more adventurous. hoping the tidy length is a sign of more Boxer-like economy as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Uow9aNCRU

album trailer featuring another song that sounds really great

fuck, the guest vocals on "you had your soul with you" are gail ann dorsey?

the national are the only good indie rock band

album is apparently 68 minutes long

i always want them to make shorter records but given how many times i've listened to this new song this morning, maybe this time it won't matter

i got it worse than anyone else and
i just can't find a way to forgive myself

i had only one thing to do
but i couldn't do it yet

i guess it's early to say this but this is the best national song i've ever heard

also this is definitely a live, unedited drum track that is meant to *sound* cut-and-pasted and it's one of the most dazzling devendorf performances, i can barely wrap my head around it

oooh well spotted

oh wow i'm pretty astounded they've done something as good as this. hopefully the rest of the album delivers because last album had a promising lead single too but was a bit underwhelming overall

Alligator is still by far their peak.

trouble is their best album until further notice imo

Brad i love your enthusiasm

I'm not sure that drum part is *entirely* live - I think I hear some subtle hi-hat programming in there, at least - but it is entirely awesome.

yeah on further listens there's a drum machine exporting tiny hi-hat fills every few seconds

Pretty sure that second new song is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8yehVUF8h0

Extra drums explained by extra drummers (cf. Radiohead, Fugazi). Devendorf is still a monster/machine.

wait are there two drummers on this song

I dunno! But that live video just above feature at least two people drumming along with Devendorf. So ... maybe? Or maybe just a little here and there? I still think it's largely him plus a minimal programming assist.

glad The National finally decided to make a concept album about the dearly departed FX series Justified

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY22IpVkQp0

here's a compilation of recordings of the unreleased songs they played on the last tour - all of them are on the new one except "sometimes i don't think" but i expect it'll be there under a different title.

"so far, so fast" is nearly 8 minutes and has an extended sax solo that reminds me of the blade runner soundtrack

xpost idk "light years" is pretty crushing

New video/track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FQtSn_vak0

The National is Arab Strap for dummies, discuss

idk sounds like you're the one who needs to make a case

yeah i'm having trouble with this one. drunk maudlin radiohead for dummies maybe.

as whole-band composers, the national are way not for dummies so uh yes please elaborate.

the deep register voice detailing personal events and the attendant feelings all within a downbeat, melancholic musical framework.

although the national's lyrics are more abstract.

I like this formula, and want to like the national, but there's something too explicit or on the nose about the words, idk

I listened to Alligator, Boxer and Trouble Will Find me the other day, and boy do I like this band, and in particular so many specific aspects of the band. Like, obviously, the drummer, who is always interesting, or the lyrics, which are sort of abstract and elliptical but still cut to some accidentally truths once in a while, to the fact that no one personality dominates the group, not even Matt, who, for that matter, has been quietly writing his lyrics with his wife for a while now, and she's not even in the band (shades of Tom Waits' work process). Had some flashbacks to all the great shows I've seen them play. Looking forward to this new album and the tour. .

I have never been able to get into The National in spite of some interesting aspects of their music and lyrics. I think that I was poisoned by reading, before I ever heard a note of The National, Carl Wilson’s article in Slate that introduced the term "crescendo rock". Once I knew Wilson’s critique, I couldn't <i>not</i> hear those things in the songs.

Another big turnoff was seeing the making-of video for "Bloodbuzz Ohio" where the camera turns to Matt Berninger’s wife, and she was such a ordinary 30-something bourgeois white family woman that it completely punctured any rock 'n' roll aura (freedom, a certain rebelliousness) around the band. I know that many rock stars have conventional family lives at the time they are producing their meaningful work, but I for one would rather not hear about it or see it. Thankfully, Matt Berninger doesn’t write cringeworthy paeans to his own children – as he stated in a 2013 interview, "When I listen to rock 'n' roll, I don't want to hear people singing about their kids – but just seeing that wife was enough to spoil it for me.

what the fuck

Well that certainly took a direction

a critique of crescendo rock followed by a crescendo of what the fuck

wave after wave