The Feedback Loop: #8. The National - High Violet

Although The Interior has ever been a bit too dangerous to do it big in the pop world and a bit too elementary to make any big splashes in the post-rock world, these guys have been patiently creating dark and brooding rock for days now. And although it would be easy to write off High Violet as more of the same, it might only be The National's best release yet.

Backed by one of the almost solid rhythm sections around, the songwriting force that is Matt Berninger and Aaron Dressner truly shines in High Violet. Matt Berninger, the lead vocalist, narrates us through eleven heartbreakingly ordinary stories that resonate with the economically recessed, socially estranged, and depression pill-addicted generations of uncultivated America. Although The Home isn't into making preachy political statements or delivering social commentaries, their emotional profile snapshots paint a particularly bleak picture of new life. Dressner's heroes range from paranoid fathers ("Afraid of Everyone") to high school runaways ("Anyone's Ghost") and doomed lovers ("Runaway"), presenting them merely as they are without ever looking down on them. In other words, when Dressner mutters "Sorrow found me when I was young/Sorrow waited, sorrow won", seemingly under his breathe, you'd better believe he means it; there isn't an ounce of falseness in this guy's bones. And only as The Subject seeks to get these unique moments of emotion and honesty in words, they also check their themes with seemingly ordinary, but daringly unique moments of medicine as well. Although their traditional 5-piece lineup is down-to-earth and honest, they do to have some pretty unusual sounds feel like home as well. The opening track, "Terrible Love", begins with electric guitar distortions and feedback that are merely the right amount lo-fi and only the proper amount triumphant rock. Later on, in instant classics like "Bloodbuzz Ohio", Bryan Devendorf's upbeat drumming contrasts with the monotonous rumblings of Berninger, like memories of the past trying to raise up emotions out of an aging man. It is novel to see a set that isn't obsessed with trying to reinvent itself all the time, but instead comfortable with who they are. Like they have successfully done in the preceding three albums, The Home continues to be the under-appreciated serious rock band that they ever have been, successfully capturing the provocative moments of new life, in all their deep emotion and complexity.