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A minor chorus of sneers and dismissals has stalked the National on their long slog to mass acceptance.
The work itself proved otherwise.
In the Nationals music, the crossed threads of life, however mangled, arent going to spoil.
The group was never quite as miserable as you remember.
At least, that used to be true.
For much of their career, Berningers baritone summed up the bands textures.
That voice languid, searching, slightly debauched was once the centerpiece of a complete and holistic text.
But onSleep Well Beast, he decided to go foraging in higher octaves.
The wine-dark seduction of his gruff rumblings was thrown to the rough mercy of unattainable upper registers.
The dissolve from lauded male harrumph to lounge singers croon introduced a new problem: that of phrasing.
All were left to nurse in this current period is a litter of empty howls.
A weary pall fell over the work as Berninger stripped all the richness and irony from his lyrics.
Nothing I change changes anything, Berninger moans on Walk It Back.
Nothing I do makes me feel any different, he laments on Ill Still Destroy You.
The pronouns I and you are flour in the dough of popular love songs.
A feeling floating idly in a vacuum is no feeling at all, just an object.
To resonate, it needs context and association, something to cling to.
Berninger himself once described the sound as feeling like hot tar and loose wool.
But that gorgeous swamp was bucketed out around the time ofSleep Well Beast.
Clipped chirps and digital whirs fluttered in.
A tangle of dry programmed percussion overtook what had once been slick and purposeful propulsion.
The dull throb of electronica intruded on a comfortably organic and analog approach.
Each successive album has been slower and more forlorn than its predecessor.
OnFrankenstein, Berninger continues his meander toward plain, unambiguous statements of inward anguish.
Im here, kicking myself to keep from crying goes the refrain on This Isnt Helping.
So much character and distinction was lost in the transition.
Once a cure for melancholy, the National now feel like a cause.
In the end, they turned into everything too many people assumed they always were.
