THE NATIONAL - Cherry Tree (2004), listen #3

I came to a realization about what I most dislike about Cherry Tree’s much-maligned (by me, and apparently nobody else) opener, “Wasp Nest.”  It’s not the bland instrumentation, although it’s not that interesting to me.  It’s not those damn bells, although I do find them annoying.  My biggest issue is Matt Berniger, plain and simple.  I don’t like his poor-man’s Dylan vocal approach of mumble-singing without putting a vocal melody to it.  I don’t like his specific inflections, and in particular, his delivery of the line “I wanna kiss your skinny throat” makes my skin crawl in a way that distances me from the song rather than pulling me in.  I don’t like the lyrics on this particular song, and more generally I don’t like the fact that seemingly 90% of his lyrics are about the narrator being condescending towards a woman. 

 

Moving on to “All The Wine,” this one does have a solid hook and a more interesting lyric, and more energy to it.  But then there’s Matt doing the same bland mumble-singing through the verses.  I wish he would put some conviction into lines like “I’m so sorry, but the motorcade will have to go around me this time.”  Now, here one could argue that the detached delivery is the point, allowing the song to telling a story wherein, to steal a turn of phrase from elsewhere, a bad time is being disguised as a good time.  But I disagree with that hypothetical argument.  Giving more of a performance and inhabiting the character would enhance any irony in the lyrics.  This version* of “All The Wine” is basically a better singer away from being a good song.  But Matt remains the worst thing about it, as he does almost every National song so far.  To even more blatantly steal another over-quoted turn of phrase, I don’t like his jerkoff voice, I don’t like his jerkoff face, I don’t like his song protagonists’ jerkoff behavior, and I don’t like him, the jerkoff.  (Okay, so I don’t actually know what his “jerkoff face” looks like, but in my head he’s the model on the cover of The National.)

 

So, is this a band killer?  Actually, no.  Rock bands overcome less that ideal singers all the time.  It’s worth noting that my favorite band of all time is friggin’ Rush, so obviously I do believe that a song can be written to fit a voice.  To that end, let’s briefly talk about “Cherry Tree” (the song).  It works, despite Matt not really doing anything differently than on the songs I like less.  Here there’s a descending guitar pattern punctuated by perfectly placed keyboards and strings at the same time as the slightly ascending vocal line, and that exact combination clicks, imbuing both the “leave it alone” parts and the “loose lips sink ships” part.  Big props to Bryan in particular for holding the song together with his drumming, and general props for a whole-band effort.  This is a band recognizing what its vocalist is specifically capable of, playing to his strengths, and building a good song out of it.

 

They don’t always nail this combination.  “About Today” has a good backbone for a song that’s just begging for its vocalist to do something with it, and he just doesn’t.  But in case I ever forget that the National are capable of writing a song I want to listen to, this EP continues to dangle that in front of me with its version of “Murder Me Rachael” that, barring one tiny flaw**, I like even better than the studio version.  Here’s a singer performing rather than just singing.  Makes them sound like a quality live band.

 

In short, the fact that I fall on the side of actively disliking the lead singer certainly doesn’t bode very well for the future of this little blogging project… but it absolutely does not preclude me from one day becoming a fan.  My brother’s led me to believe that we’re still in the era that the band almost completely ignore in their present-day live set, so obviously the National have a long way to go to evolve into today’s version of the band.  Whether or not that’s a good thing (for me) will be a question that plays out over the the months to come.

 

- Favorite track (of the new ones):  "Cherry Tree"

- Runner up:  "All The Wine"

- Least favorite track:  "Wasp Nest”

- Rating:  2/5 (no change)

 

My thoughts on Alligator whenever I get around to it!

 

 

*obviously, I don’t know yet whether they just plopped “All The Wine” onto Alligator as-is, or whether they put a different spin on it.

 

**it’s such a minor thing that I didn’t want to interrupt my point with it.  But in this otherwise legitimately wonderful performance, I do wish Matt saved “tomorrow won’t be pretty” for the extended climax of the song, like on the studio version, rather than introducing it in the second verse.  The whole song ought to be building up to that line.