delicate details of violet

High Violet by The National was officially released last Tuesday. If "official" release dates are still relevant, of course. Thanks to illegal leaks and pre-release streams (The New York Times streamed High Violet two weeks prior to its release), an album's street date is as useless as dial-up internet access. And that's unfortunate. Generation X'ers, remember those Monday night midnight sales? It was a special time: not only could you be one of the first to hear the newest record by your favorite band, but, while waiting in line outside the record store, you could engage in face-to-face interactions with other fans and discuss your favorite song, your favorite album and your favorite concert. The last midnight sale I recall attending was way back in June 2001, and the band was Radiohead, the album, Amnesiac. Now, new releases slowly bleed onto the Internet, making the pomp and circumstance of a new release a rare event.

Awaiting High Violet's arrival conjured many memories of a music scene long beyond the point of resuscitation. (Which is strange, because it took me nearly two years to fully appreciate The National's previous album, Boxer. I now cherish that record. Boxer is certainly a favored album from the previous decade – and yes, it rivals and, depending my mood, surpasses another fav from that decade, Kid A.) How did High Violet stir such antique memories? The National's songs remind me of those old wooden boxes you sometimes see on Antique Road Show. Like those valuable relics, each song etched into High Violet's mantel is intricately shaped – it's an old-world craftsmanship, a world in which songwriting was a cherished talent, a time when a band like Sleigh Bells and an album like Treats would be justly treated as a throwaway trinket from a 25¢ vending machine. The National's sound is subtle yet deliberate; each sound you hear (from Matt Berninger's sigh in the closing seconds of "Lemonworld" to the sneaking strings of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks") is purposely carved into its surrounding environment, and it's this detail that sets the band apart from the current flavor-of-the-month band spewed forth by the Internet Hype Machine. Also, how about High Violet's running time? In 2010, who releases an album that clocks in at nearly forty-eight minutes? Indeed, with their latest effort, The National present everything that's good about indie-rock music, which, unfortunately, or perhaps justly, clashes with everything that is popular about indie rock right now.

In typical dour fashion, the band opens High Violet with "Terrible Love" and follows with "Sorrow," in which Berninger pleads "Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water," then admits "'Cos I don't wanna get over you." "Anyone's Ghost" follows, and with the chorus "Didn't want to be anyone's ghost/But I don't want anyone else," High Violet's sentiment is secured. It's the inability to release the memory of everything lost to the tides of time that stains the album so beautifully. Berninger, whose rusty baritone could console the most piteous souls among us, sings/speaks with the confident drawl of a drunken professor and reminds us, simply through the sound of his voice, that we all struggle with the necessity of release.

In a 2007 interview with The Onion's A.V. Club, Berninger spoke about the significance of keeping the meanings of his lyrics a "little bit blurry," which is fitting because since Boxer, The National's sound has drifted in the hazy mass of a fog. Or maybe it's a ghost. High Violet quivers on the edge of your mind, haunting the periphery, but just when you attempt to reach out and consider its density, it all becomes "blurry," lost in the beauty of subtlety. It's in that vast expanse that High Violet is allowed to flutter and breathe, defying absolute definition.

Unlike many "it" bands, acts who feel the need to expose every crevice of their aural bodies in every second of their songs, The National make restraint an art form. So much of our culture is based on "turning it up to 11." This idiom guides popular music, radio and television programs and advertisements; High Violet counteracts this senseless noise by hiding itself inside skillfully written songs. Are talented artists still appreciated in 2010? No. Everything's gone to hell. Wars, government uprisings, global warming, capitalism's clowns, oil in the Gulf. "There's no saving anything/Now we're swallowing the shine of the summer" Berninger speaks, more breath than words, in "Runaway." But the ghosts of High Violet will console us: "I won't be no runaway/Cause I won't run."

xx