Boxer

When listening to Boxer, the newest album by Brooklyn based The National, my mind drifts to the week I first heard it. A pile of pillows and blankets cover the floor of my girlfriend’s yet to be furnished Kalamazoo apartment. It is the night before I am to move to Brooklyn, entering us into what one would call a long distance relationship. My eyes are heavy, but I contemplate Matt Berninger’s steady voice, rattling into the early morning. Rewind to four years earlier. Another life. A film plays at the Ann Arbor State theatre, of which I have no recollection. A hand is placed on my ankle, and the touch is filled with electricity. I daren’t move for fear of breaking some beginning. Now, when I walk the newly icy streets of Brooklyn, I hear these songs and they echo in my headphones with a new power: home.

And so it is with the scope of this beautiful album. My vivid memories commingle with those of the band, and something new comes to the surface. Berninger’s narrative form focuses in on a detail, the color of a pair of gloves, and suddenly pulls out to reveal a sea of faces, brushing shoulders and bundling up a bit tighter for the winter. A strained relationship with heaven is here, too; a healthy skepticism and dissatisfaction with forms no longer able to access the depths found beneath them. The National’s choice of band name seems to me more than a little pointed. Every “I,” “we,” and “you,” actively implicates both the listener and the band. Even Berninger’s unabashed use of “la la la’s” and “mmm-hmmm’s,” reveal much more than a melancholy take on some of pop music’s oldest and purest lyric forms. They seem to be hiding a secret, some words exchanged that only the two of us remember, because it only holds weight in that place. To everyone else, “la de da, la de da…”

I would be doing this exquisite album a major disservice were I to neglect the music. These men are musicians in the truest sense, in that their instruments are natural extensions of themselves. They seem to be looking to unlock lost depth in form here, too. Tensions are layered patiently, finding release at the last possible moment. Lesser bands show their cards right when they are supposed to. The National has the chops to hang on, hang on. When Padme Newsome's brass and string arrangements thunder in, its enough to twist your gut and leave you breathless.This sort of confidence in detail pays off in ways difficult to define. Most, amazed at the way the extra piano flourish holds more power the tenth time than the second, resort to calling the album a “grower,” and leave it at that. I would attribute this power to the band’s ability to craft a song without neglecting the weight of any one of its collective parts. It is impossible to tell if lyrics were written before music, or vise versa, because they are tied so tightly to the same emotional anchor. This becomes most obvious with Bryan Devendorf’s incredible drumming. No fill is added superfluously, no tempo chosen without care of the structure of the song as a whole. In fact, the contemplative work from a drummer of his capacity brings to light just how rare this sort of craftsmanship is. Perhaps I am not looking in the right places, but the indie albums that weigh each instrument’s emotional quality this heavily are few and far between.

Brian Wilson once said that he crafted the bassline of “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” as the song’s emotional heartbeat. However, I felt that power in my chest long before I understood what he was doing intellectually. Wilson knew, possibly better than any pop musician in history, the world of potential in how an artist puts sounds together. When he sings “Surf’s up! Aboard the tidal wave!” and his piano laps gently against a California dock, I don’t contemplate the coming storm; I actually brace my knees. Now, when Berninger boldly confesses “You know, I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you” as the band weighs in with him, fully aware of the delicate situation, I realize that The National left someone they care about in Kalamazoo.

Seth.