THE NATIONAL - Trouble Will Find Me (2013), listens #3-5

On listen #3 to Trouble Will Find Me, the song that jumped out the most was "Demons."  By listen #4 I couldn't actually remember why it stood out so much.  I did think I had my premise for this essay, though.  Just so I can't be accused of leading the reader along, let's start with that: I was originally going to say that the record is an example of more of the same from a band I like but will never adore.  Except that more listening then led me to... maybe not totally overturn, but definitely tweak that opinion, because I realized that I was selling the record short in a few key ways.  We'll get there.  

 

First, though, "Demons."  I still don't remember exactly why at one point "Demons" seemed like a new level for this band because, well, it sounds like a National song.  I guess Matt commits a little more to going full monotone and there are a few wrinkles, like the way the primary "chorus" is punctuated not by a change in volume or pitch but by more fuzzed out guitars.  As the National is wont to do, they then add on a secondary climax that complements the main chorus (the "when I walk into a room, I do not light it up" part) and then puts the two parts close together so the listener can hear how they mesh.  Typical strategy for the band.  "Demons" is a good song that I like quite a lot, of the sort the National have done a whole bunch of.  It's followed by some songs that don't work quite as well but also have good parts and also sound like songs that the National have done a whole bunch of.

So, I started to conclude, here the National is doing National things, and doing them well overall; we've reached the point in their career at which how much one enjoys it will depend on how much one loves National things.  As someone who enjoys but doesn't adore their overall "thing," I've already got Boxer.  Thus (I figured), I don't really need to listen to Trouble when Boxer exists.  I'll enjoy Trouble well enough, while regretting the incredible unlikelihood that the National are even capable of ever making another record I enjoy as much as Boxer.  Sad but true, and not even all that sad.  

 

That was going to be the conclusion.  I'd basically drafted that post, in my head, as the music was playing.  That verdict is now abandoned, or at least sidestepped, for two main reasons.

I've made no secret that the winning song from this record for me, from almost the beginning, has been "This Is The Last Time."  That's definitely still the case.  TITLT kept me coming back with all that it's got going on.  Not even that long a song, but so many different parts, all of which play off each other.  The opening is mostly vocals and whatever bass or bass-like instrument that is, actually being minimalistic rather than just sounding like it.  I've already raved about the atypically straightforward lyrics about being sucked into to something or someone and how they set up the first chorus.  And hopefully I appropriately raved in the listen #2 post about just how perfect the stirring "I won't be vacant anymore" is on its own, plus it plays on the previous use of the word "vacant," plus the way it's not the triumphant finish but peters out as the melancholy cello takes over.  I can't get over what an impressive thirty seconds or so of music that is.  Then on top of all that, the song's outro, as its own lyrics say, changes everything, with the way the ghostly vocals from Sharon von Etten take over the song while looping back around to its first lines.  "When I lift you up" is reversed into "it takes a lot of pain to pick me up," as if coming back to the speaker from the object of his obsession.  I'm doing my best to highlight in "objective" descriptions the subjective feeling that the songcraft is exceptional, next-level stuff.  This is as exciting to me as the multiple complementary parts of High Violet's "Conversation 16" and "England" were; here it's like getting all the complementary stuff at once.  Even if every other track on Trouble were shit, the presence of "This Is The Last Time" would convince me that the band still is going places.  Even if they didn't top Boxer this time around (for me), they still have a shot at doing so.

The other big thing about Trouble is that the hooks are just too good to ignore.  I don't even know if "hook" is the right word, but as a vocal melody person, I'm a sucker for a haunting minor chord.  Remember how on the last record "Anyone's Ghost" basically got by on having one extremely neat minor chord that acted as a hook, and then just played it over and over?  It worked there, and it works on a bunch of songs here.  I'd say the single best repeated chord and hence the record's best chorus is the "tunnelvision" parts of "Humiliation," but it's got some competition.  Just to name a few, most of "Demons," the title phrase of "I Should Live In Salt," the title phrase of "Fireproof," the title phrase and associated rhymes of "Graceless," the guitar part of "I Need My Girl," and the "am I the one you're thinking of" part of "Pink Rabbits."  Each one of those things makes me say "I could listen to that shit all day."  Not every bit of every song on Trouble hits, with many even causing my mind to wander for big chunks of them, but pretty much every song has something that's really good about it.  

 

So that's my overall conclusion:  Trouble isn't uniformly great, yet it's great often enough that it comfortably makes a case for the National's ongoing existence as an act to keep an eye on.

Stray thoughts:

- Following up on a comment about minimalism from above: in this era of the National putting strings and horns over everything, they don't really do stripped down minimalist songs anymore.  They still pretend to, though!  Slow tracks like "Fireproof," "Slipping," and "Hard To Find" do sound as though they're simpler at first, but listen a little more closely and you hear that there's still always a lot going on, a few musical layers.

 

- The Internet seems pretty confident that "Jennifer" from "Fireproof" and "Jenny" from "This Is The Last Time" aren't supposed to be the same character.  *shrug*

- Best Berniger-isms:  Tie between "I should live in salt for leaving you... behind" and "I was a television version of a person with a broken heart"

- Worst Berniger-ism:  "I was teething on roses, I was in Guns N' Noses."  The fact that I get the drug imagery doesn't make the line any less cringeworthy. 

Favorite track:  "This Is The Last Time" (of course)

Runner up:  "Demons"

Least favorite:  "Heavenfaced"

Overall rating:  3.5/5

Definitive running list of records by the National that I have listened to in order of what I have decided is unambiguously their quality
1)  Boxer

2)  Trouble Will Find Me

3)  High Violet

4)  Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers
5)  Alligator
6)  The National
7)  Cherry Tree

Thoughts on Sleep Well Beast whenever I get around to it!