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This afternoon, I ran into a dude I'd met a party a few weeks earlier.
"What're you up to?" he asked, feigning interest. I grabbed my functionless, spotted tie.
"Just coming home from my shitty day job," I answered, almost sulking.
We stared at each other for a second and parted ways. It was pathetic.
What's worse, I'm about to walk away from that shitty day job and I'm as close to broke as I've ever been.
It all hit me last night, so I went for my favourite records. You know the type. Old stand-bys, meant to pick me up out of my slumber. But nothing was working, so I opted for High Violet, the latest from mood-rockers The National. Normally, I reserve The National's records for the clichés, like sitting alone in the rain or driving home at dusk, but the results were surprisingly effective in my vulnerable state of mind. No, I didn't feel way better. The National have no redemptive powers, a la Bruce Springsteen. And I've never understood the comparison between the two acts.
Instead, The National don't pull any punches about the life of a young adult. On "Bloodbuzz Ohio," the first mesmerizing single from High Violet, they lament over the pressures so many of us feel but neglect to bring up in conversation -- "I still owe money/to the money I owe" -- dragging the young, privileged listener with slow efficiency through the mud we all know too well. "I never thought about love/when I thought about home."
Feel better yet? Me neither. But you're well on your way to feeling less and less like a fraud.
The National's previous efforts, including 2005's breakthrough Alligator and 2007's sublime Boxer, demonstrated the band's ability to hold its sonic spark dangerously close to the dynamite, with a sound teetering between graceful sonic catastrophe and the kind of crescendos that could explode at any moment. It was as if the listener was just waiting for something to happen, which is probably why High Violet garnered so much hype before its release.
And even if this sounds derogatory, it's not -- High Violet never does explode. There are no out-and-out bangers, nothing that resembles the fury of "Mr. November." Instead, High Violet works because of its patience. The band reacted to the pressure to choose a side of the fence by simply staying put. And yes, the crescendos are scaled back. In that regard, High Violet offers almost none of the "Hope" that previous releases did. Instead, the band has accepted where it is.
So -- broke, out of cigarettes, and no one's texted you in ages? Fall into the calming, swirling haunt of "Sorrow" and believe in Matt Berninger's desperate grumble: "Cover me in rag and bones, sympathy/Cause I don't wanna get over you." Why deny the funk that's grasped your early adult life? Embrace that pale agitation we all shut out so easily with desperate tools like Facebook. "Say you stay at home /alone with the flu/find out from friends/that wasn't true/Go out at night with your headphones on, again," he mutters in "Anyone's Ghost" over the consistently punchy (and consistently righteous) work of drummer Bryan Devendorf, and slow, rippling guitar lines from the Dessner brothers. How soon we forget that depression isn't so easy to hide. Instead, being honest to yourself about your shitty state of mind is the first step towards being honest with the world around you. ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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