In Case You Missed It - High Violet

The National
High Violet
4AD

Welcome to my new feature for The Casualty Report, In Case You Missed It. This is basically a chance for me to go back and look at some albums, movies, etc. that may no longer fall under anyone's definition of "new releases" and provide my thoughts. These will only be things that I thought warranted going back to, so they'll typically be works that I think are either very good, very bad, or have some quality or aspect that inspires me to discuss it.

For the very first In Case You Missed It, I decided to delve all the way back to the distant time of May 2010, when Brooklyn rockers The National released their fifth album, High Violet. I was first introduced to The National from their previous album, Boxer, which I was a huge fan of, and so I had pretty high expectations for High Violet (and I think my experience is the same as a lot of other people - Boxer was the band's most commercially successful album by far, and concert attendance soared for them after its release). So, it's pretty clear that there was a great deal of pressure on The National to deliver - after all, if a good amount of your fans have only heard one excellent album, you risk losing a lot of them if the next album is a piece of crap (ahem, Band of Horses, cough cough).

It is apparent 4 minutes and 40 seconds (the length of the album opener, "Terrible Love") into High Violet that not only have The National delivered on the promise of Boxer, but they may have blown away everyone's expectations. I can think of precious few songs that open an album as well as "Terrible Love" does, with its slow, head-nodding beginning that moves into one of the most swelling and triumphant finishes of the group's career (and that's something, considering these are the people who brought you "Mr. November"). The songs on High Violet sometimes resemble those on Boxer - "Sorrow" and "Bloodbuzz Ohio" sound like they would fit right in among other great tracks like "Fake Empire" or "Slow Show" - but there's plenty of diversity to be found. "Anyone's Ghost" is a haunting, eclectic number that works beautifully with lead singer Matt Berninger's baritone voice, and "England" launches into a soaring finish that sounds like it should be played at the end of an epic movie scene.

High Violet takes the sound that the band has developed over their previous four albums and adds in dollops of one key ingredient: emotion. Critics love to describe The National as "moody" or "brooding" rockers, which I think is sometimes apt. However, the excellent music and Matt Berninger's wonderful voice combine throughout the album to reach out and almost slam the listener with those powerful feelings that cause your stomach to tingle - whatever emotion that is (it's not really describable - well, certainly I do a shitty job at it), it's certainly not "brooding." Berninger has the ability to take a simple lyric, such as "It takes an ocean not to break," and I don't even really know what that means, but when he belts it out repeatedly in that voice of his it really hits me.

If you missed High Violet, you'll definitely want to check it out. The back half of the album isn't quite as consistently awesome as the start (the one-two punch of "Afraid of Everyone" - my favorite song on the album - and "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is pretty unbeatable), but I'd say it's easily going to be one of the best albums of the year.

Grade: A

Next time on In Case You Missed It: Lupe Fiasco - Lupe Fiasco's The Cool