The high water mark for this band so far, with a thematic unity among the songs that earlier records like boxer and alligator only hinted. And the darkness and drama is only maturing, with singles in high violet's wake such as 'think you can wait' and 'you were a kindness.' The only blight here is 'lemonworld' which wrecks the flow of the album, and i'm surprised that with such deep intelligence these guys couldn't or refused to see that. Probably the best record of 2010 and hopefully the beginning in a radiohead-like series of musical achievements for a band that truly deserves all accolades. The National became popular in a very traditional way: by releasing some really good albums, then touring the hell out of them. They're boilerplate indie, free of hot new genre tags or feature-ready backstories, which is something their detractors derive great joy from pointing out. ![]() If the National are important, rather than merely good, it's for writing about the type of lived-in moments that rock bands usually don't write about that well. The characters in National songs have real jobs, have uninteresting sex, get drunk, and lie to one another. They do so during the regular course of a workaday week, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The National aren't 'dad-rock' so much as 'men's magazine rock': music chiefly interested in the complications of being a stable person expected to own certain things and dress certain ways. On the National's fifth album, High Violet, those constraints are starting to wear on them, which makes a lot of sense: they wear on most people. ![]()
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