Is anyone else perplexed by the new release by The National (Beggars Banquet)? Maybe it’s the production: the snare drum is jarringly sharper than the rest of the instruments – and just a little too loud. And on the opening track, it sounds like the drummer is playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2 while the rest of the band is playing something else. Is that intentional? Maybe it’s intentional.
Or maybe it’s vocalist Matt Berninger’s obscure but touching lyrics sung through mumbling monotone vocals. Listening to him sing these songs is like running into one of your tortured poet friends drunk at a dive bar and listening to him moan about his latest romantic disaster and hear him read the poetry he wrote about it just before you arrived. That’s not a criticism; scenes like that are the reason you like him – he wears his heart on his sleeve and doesn’t apologize for how he feels.
It couldn’t be the songs. Boxer gets progressively better with each track. However, The National have always had a slightly retro feel to their sound, mining the same early New Wave territory that fellow New Yorker’s Interpol do. Maybe that’s the problem. Much of The National’s work adheres to a particular sound and they seem contained by it. Or maybe its the work of a collective group of introverts — where their energy is directed inwards instead of busting out and blowing the roof off wherever they’re playing: You know they want to do more, but its not in their nature.