the national countdown

Photo by Andrea Heins

Here in the office, we’re all really high on the National’s upcoming one, The Boxer, out May 22 on Matador. Their last record, Alligator, really snuck up on me — it wasn’t until it fared so well in the 2005 user poll here on eMusic that I really paid much attention to it. And even then, I have to admit that beyond “Abel,” nothing really snagged me all that much. But having spent some time with The Boxer, I’m feeling increasingly confident that that was intentional on the band’s part.

The Boxer is just so subtle. I’ve talked about the record with both Joe and Todd in the past couple of days, and that’s the word we all keep returning to: subtle. This is a freshwater album, the slight tugs to Matt Berninger’s voice more in line with the slow currents of a mountain-top lake or a dragonfly-patrolled stream than any ocean that I know. It’s also a very American album, a fact that I am certain of, but have had trouble pinpointing exactly why that’s true.

In terms of tone, there’s just an air of resignation that permeates everything so fully. I keep thinking of both a title and album from Neil Young that feels applicable in many ways: After the Goldrush. There’s nothing as plaintive as Young’s impeccable (and needy) “Tell Me Why,” but a song like “Birds,” with its pleading “fly away without you” is all over The Boxer. This is an album about and for people who had hope, but now they don’t. I mean, that album title: doesn’t it bring up images of Raging Bull, former bruisers stumbling through life punch-dumb and left for dead?

And yet despite all of these downers, Joe offered a prediction this morning: that this will be the bar album of the summer, in the same way that Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights was back in 2002 or 2003. I know what he’s saying. On a certain kind of night, with the windows open and the breeze hitting the frames and swooping down the counter-top in a certain way, I can feel in my bones how perfect many of these songs would — and will — sound. It’s a special record, folks. May 22. Mark that down. You want this one.

Some videos:

“Mistaken for Strangers” (from The Boxer)

And I shared this one before, but this is probably my favorite song on the album, “Gospel”