I was wondering if this band has any fans on this forum. I've been a big fan of this amazing band since 2007 "Boxer", and I've picked up 2005 "Alligator" as well as 2010 "High Violet" and their brand new "Trouble Will Find Me" as soon as I could lay my hand upon it. I saw them live in Paradiso Amsterdam three years ago. Awesome live-band too.
Here's two random tracks:
I rather like them, but irked that they named their album 'High Violet', when there was already a cool band 'The High Violets', who I like a bit better.
Just getting into the new album - it appears to be a grower
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
I've been listening to them a bit recently.
They're like a lot of current bands in that their sound and lyrical slant are quite tightly defined - somber folk-rock songs about regrets and faded love, where even the uptempo rockers sound heartbroken. They're not like most current bands, or many rock bands at all, in their extreme degree of precise musical craftsmanship. Everything supports the song, yet the arrangements and playing aren't just pointedly understated - even the noticeable, out-front parts absolutely had to be there. For an example, their horn section - just trumpet and trombone, mostly playing sustained lines and chords - sounds carefully chosen to produce a mournful tone, one that a saxophone would wreck. Their music is about as far from prog's exuberant busyness, or Sixties psych throw-everything-at-the-wall as you can get; and gives a simultaneous sense of open space and completeness, where every note contributes and needed to be just that note and no other.
In this - but in no other directly musical way - they remind me of NYC prog band The Knells. But there's another way both bands are similar: Like The Knells' Andrew McKenna Lee, The National's Bryce Dessner has another career as a classical composer, and formal training at it. In light of which their almost casual perfection makes sense. Indeed, The National's precision and the openness of their sound echoes classical Minimalism's detailed exploration of very small ides, and from what I've heard of his own music, Bryce seems to fall into that movement. And since his brother Aaron leads the band, as far as I can tell, playing with The National amounts to Bryce's day job.
The album Boxer came out right when I was running the music section of my school's student paper and I spent a lot of time listening to it in '07 and '08.
"Fake Empire" is a monumental song.
I haven't kept up with them.
I have Boxer and High Violet. I like them well enough but never felt compelled to go much beyond those two. I listened to Trouble Will Find You and wasn't moved.
Another thread costing me money. I downloaded a few tunes & got sucked in. I love how the production allows a breathiness to the tunes. I ended up with around $20 of music,
to see if I liked it.
I did.
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