Wistful pop’s next chapter
First Two Pages of Frankenstein marks a new beginning for the National after a period of personal and creative uncertainty, according to their press statements. The cumbersome title is cheeky considering the turn Mary Shelley’s novella takes after its optimistic opening. But if the National is a twenty-something-year-old monster the band created, it seems like it still has a full and redemptive life ahead of it.
Confessional and casually cryptic, Matt Berninger sings from the conviction that “There’s nothing stopping me now / From saying all the painful parts out loud.” He broods constructively though, aware of the pitfalls of following moods wherever they want to go (“Your Mind Is Not Your Friend.”) The nostalgia pervading the songs is framed in awe and gratitude. On “New Order T-Shirt” he cherishes the time his ex- and her father saved him when customs thought his Japanese alarm clock was a bomb. “Alien” harkens back to the “old idea” when the couple were “stuck in a car wash somewhere and you can’t stop laughing.” Specific memories ground songs about love in limbo. They also lend a conversational air to otherwise befuddling metaphors about tranquilizing the oceans and magnets making machines go crazy.
The National sound like they’ve lived through their material, or still are living through it, in fact. Berninger’s delivery is convincingly heavy-hearted and sticks closely to the rhythms and dynamics of speech, resulting in what feel like relatively unmediated documents of the narrator’s experiences. On the flip side of the Sprechgesang approach, the melodies generally aren’t as assertive as they might be, but feel plucked from the air. There are exceptions, like “Tropic Morning News” and “Eucalyptus,” which discovers a punky chant in the angular meter of the phrase “You should take it ’cause I’m not gonna take it.” Occasionally, in their trademark styles, guest artists Phoebe Bridgers, Sufjan Stevens and Taylor Swift expand Berninger’s low and rough vocal lines to loftier realms and serve as both his double and his foil in the stories he tells.
The opening track starts off with a slightly muffled piano arpeggio with a delicate graininess to the recording, the aural equivalent of dust particles floating in afternoon light; and that impression might as well be the template for the instrumentation on this contemplative pop-rock album. Recognizable chords rendered slow, textured, distant and kind of sad, even when a peppy drum machine has other plans. Icy reversed-tape fingerpicking, mumbling guitar solos and wispy orchestration are among the gestures that distinguish the poetical production.
The last song of First Two Pages takes into account that the most memorable times, good and bad, are usually the unique ones, and plans a rescue mission around that fact. “If you’re singing in a song museum / Without a drop to drink,” it goes, “And you can’t even make eye contact / Can’t even think / Send for me.” Immersed in the details that make moments especially sorrowful or especially wonderful or both, the National are prepared to turn them into more bittersweet songs for those who need them, including themselves.
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