Tuesday, May 18, 2010

New Glide Review The National High Violet



Got a new Review up on Glide.

Check it out C'Here!

It is of The National's newest release High Violet.

This is a complex album, no easy way to review it, there is a lot going on and I seemed to write a lot about it...go ahead read it, I will be here when you get back for a bit more commentary...

Ok, I stand by everything I wrote, but this was one tough disk to give a star rating, I fluxuated with 3 and 1/2 or 4 or 16 or negative 5, it is weird but I think it comes down to this:

I respect this album more then I like this album...if that makes sense.

I wrote the review before I had the chance to read the the NY Times Magazine mega article on them, and I am glad I did.  The article goes on to give backgrounds on the group and how meticulous they are in crafting that perfect pop song by creating and destroying hundreds of hours of music during their recording process.  Well Bully for them!!  Doesn't mean jackdiddlyshit to me.  What they did manage to create was an album that is a complete work that is unsettling and isolating at times.   

My easiest comparison in my own brain is Radiohead.  Every time those Oxfordshire blokes put out a new album I seem to listen to it once or twice shrug my shoulders, admit it's good and then never listen to it again...I know this puts in me the minority as most people love them, and I can see why, they just do not speak to me.  I am getting that same vibe and feeling from The National.  I should note however I did love a track off of Boxer, which did speak directly to my earhole called "Apartment Story" (I will post it down below).

I will save the elongated Radiohead rant for another day, but The National's biggest stumbling block for me is Matt Berninger's voice and the monotone it seems to induce in the band's music at various points.  I want my music to be an adventure, I don't mind unsettling but I need it to shake me up, or make me feel!  Perhaps I am just not in that mode/mood these days. 

It comes down to the last line that I wrote about the album:
"High Violet works best as a solitary listening experience during late nights or early mornings, when fear, dreams and desires swirl and mix into one"
 
And that is not the way I best enjoy my music...at that time I am usually living the Hi-life or gearing up to do it again...

Oh well, maybe I or it will change the future if I go back to High Violet, but for now I have rambled enough, here are a few tracks from it, tell me what you think about it or whatever...


And here's a tune I really dug off their last album, "Apartment Story"

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