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Best albums of 2017: #3 The National “Sleep well beast”

Four years! I repeat. Four years!

It may not seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things but in this age of musical mass consumption and disposal, it feels almost the equivalent of a decade or more. And that’s how long we’ve had to wait since the last The National record for new material. It was interminable. Bordering on indefinite hiatus. Luckily for us, they made our wait worth the while.

I got into The National with 2007’s “The boxer” and to my ears, the Cincinnati five-piece have, with each successive album, built upon their last, creating new worlds with their music while remaining recognizable and true to their sound. And with “Sleep well beast”, now their seventh record and third since “The boxer”, the critics are falling over themselves yet again with how experimental this record is and how the band has reinvented themselves… again.

I’m not sure about the reinvention bit but it is a fantastic record. It is dark and ambient and rich with layers of sound and Matt Berninger’s baritone. It was this last that was the cause for many early comparisons to Joy Division but I don’t think that anyone would go there now. This music is warmer and livelier, despite its inherent sombre tone, not at all like the claustrophobia imbued in early post-punk. “Sleep well beast” is an album for noise cancelling ear phones set at high volume, like much of The National’s work, and it’s also the sound of the band pushing themselves to the limits on every track.

Okay. Enough of my fan boy blatherings. Have a listen to my three picks for you and let me know what you think.

“Carin at the liquor store”: The piano work at the beginning suggests a conversation walked in upon halfway through, a song that has always been there but only just discovered now. The reverb melts in at some point in the song, putting Berninger out on some higher plane, while he sings about his wife, Carin, and finding the body of a long dead writer in the same breath. A love song unlike one I’ve ever heard. And yet, oh so beautiful.

“The system only dreams in total darkness”:  Maybe it’s the title or maybe the lyrical themes but this tune feels like Pink Floyd at the height of their powers, listening to it, though, you might call me crazy. It’s got a jaunty beat, Matt Berninger’s rich vocals, and is nowhere near as long a tune as Floyd would have it. Still, “The system” is a dark machine with plenty of intricate inner workings that make it go and only become apparent with close observation. Great pop song too.

“Day I die”:  Track two is killer. A manic beat and an ecstatic guitar scream that pushes things even further and faster than I’m sure they are meant to be. The vocals, too, are in a rush, as if Berninger has to get the message across in the limited time he has. But this is a National song, so the message is somewhat blurred by the imagery and the stream of consciousness delivery. If I had to guess, though, I’d say it has more to do with living than dying, and living without hesitation or regret. So don’t delay, get up and dance with The National. You won’t regret it.

For the rest of the albums in this list, check out my Best Albums page here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1990: #3 Ride “Vapour trail”

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“Vapour trail”, the number three song on this Best of 1990 list, marks the second appearance here by Ride, the other being “Chelsea girl” at number seventeen. In that other post, I espoused my love for the band and blathered on about their importance and their influence on other bands that followed.

Many fans might disagree with my rating “Vapour trail” higher than “Chelsea girl”, perhaps preferring the the earlier and more raw sound of the latter, but I stand by my choice. It is easily their most recognizable and popular tune for a reason. And even Andy Bell, who wrote this particular track, has been quoted as saying that this is the song of which he is most proud from that era. It closes (the original track list of) their debut album, “Nowhere” with a bang and an exclamation point. The funky drums that won’t quit and that string coda leads the listener reluctantly away from such an explosive mess of noise and begs for a click on the repeat button.

There has been lots of conjecture over the use of effects to create that sweet guitar line that pulls the whole song together but Bell has been adamant that it came about naturally. They achieved it by twinning twelve string Rickenbackers and you can almost picture Bell looking at Mark Gardener with a nod and a smile, free and easy, embodying the whole mood of the song. It’s eyes closed on the dance floor, not quite dancing but shuffling, and not a care in the world, except for the fear that the song might end. Unfortunately, it does but the ecstasy stays, fading slowly, that beautiful, shimmering C-sharp minor–B–A–E chord progression reverbering in your eardrums.

What’s that you say? You want to hear it again?

You’re welcome.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1990 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #24 Gorillaz “Clint Eastwood”

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In or about a month ago, I posted some other words on Gorillaz and one of the few other songs of theirs that I liked, “On melancholy hill” (#13 on my Best of 2010 list). In that same post, I made mention of this track, which also happened to be my first taste of what the virtual hip hop fusion band led by Blur frontman Damon Albarn was going to be offering.

“Clint Eastwood” was the first single released off Gorillaz’s self-titled, debut album. The name of the song appears nowhere in its lyrics, nor does it seem at first glance, relevant to its themes. I recently learned, though, that it was so named due to the similarity of the song’s melody to that of the theme song for the film, “The good, the bad, and the ugly”. I never picked up on that myself but now that I know it’s there, it changes things a bit for me, and I can’t seem to un-hear it. I always used to feel that the drum machine rhythm and keyboard line, as well as the synthesized strings, evoked the image of a travelling midway circus, a dark and haunted one, at that. I loved Albarn’s sung, ear worm chorus and its interplay with Del the Funky Homosapien’s rapped verses. The whole thing had an eerie but laidback groove that you didn’t want to try too hard to escape, no matter how unsettling it was.

The song will always remind me of one of the few social evenings my wife and I enjoyed shortly after relocating from Toronto to Ottawa. I had met a couple of people at the new call centre job I had started at the end of August, found myself wandering down for coffee at the same time as them during breaks, and by October, Candace, Jeff, and I were making plans to go out for drinks with our respective boyfriends and girlfriends. The six of us met at the Blue Cactus down in the Byward Market on a Saturday night and we had a blast. Even to this day, my wife Victoria looks back fondly on that evening and marvels at how easily we hit it off. The group of us would go out a few more times together after that but save for a particularly fun New Year’s gathering at our place, we never really replicated the magic of that night.

And at some point during the evening, “Clint Eastwood” was played in the Blue Cactus and even as deeply engaged in hilarious conversation as we were, my subconscious recognized the track and my head started bopping. I think it was Candace who noticed and asked who it was that was playing. I explained and we all sat back and soaked in the song for a few moments before continuing with the laughter. It wasn’t the first time I had heard the song, but perhaps the first time from someone else’s speakers and in a whole other environment and I saw it in a whole other light.

But enough blathering. Enjoy the tune.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.