Hot New Joint: "Guilty Party" by The National
I say your name; I say
I’m sorry
It’s territory The National have tread in before, eerily
reminiscent of the once obscure track from the Cherry Tree EP, “About Today”—a song that took on new life once the
band figure out what to do with it in a live setting: slow it down slightly,
let the tension build, and then let it explode.
A four month roll out for a new album is kind of a long
time. Traditionally (if the last ten years have taught us anything) when The
National are going to release a new record, it’s usually in May. This time
around, the announcement of a new album arrived in May; the album, Sleep Well Beast, will not arrive until
September. The news of this forthcoming effort came alongside the album’s first single, “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness.”
Now, following its live debut in late June, the band has
issued another slice of Sleep Well Beast—the
slow burning, skittering, glitchy, and somber “Guilty Party.”
If “Guilty Party,” as well as “System,” indicate anything
about the sound of the new album, it’s that we’ve entered into a new phase for
the band, sonically speaking. We could talk for days about the shadowy tension
and release found in their “classic” efforts like Alligator and Boxer, and
how the band, for better or for worse, peaked with 2010’s High Violet—the culmination of a decade’s worth of work and growth
that found frontman Matt Berninger finally becoming comfortable in his role,
and a more confident vocalist.
Their 2013 album, Trouble Will Find Me, wasn’t a misstep; it just did nothing to truly move the band
forward, or backward. Reflecting on it after four years, it’s easy to see it
was a record made by a band that had no idea what to do with their success, or
their aesthetic.
The four years between records has allowed members of the
band to pursue other projects, and to continue in developing as musicians and
performers. That development is very apparent in these early slices of Sleep Well Beast—it was obvious from the
rollicking vibe and tight, crisp sounding production of “System,” and it’s very
obvious on “Guilty Party,” with the inclusion of the jittery drum machines and
buzzy synths to help power the song along, mixing the mechanical with the
band’s organic core.
“Guilt Party” is sad, sure—a majority of National songs are
sad. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? But it’s what they are doing with that
sadness this time around that makes this song so compelling, essential, and one
of 2017’s best. The evocative, personal levels Berninger takes the listener to
on “Guilt Party” is only rivaled by a few other songs in their canon—most
notably Trouble Will Find Me’s “Pink
Rabbits.”
When the band hit their creative stride with the one-two
punch of Alligator and Boxer, the songs were submerged in mysterious,
vague imagery and sketches. You were certain there was a little bit of
Berninger in there somewhere, but a majority of the material from this time
(especially on Alligator) was steeped
in the now infamous hyper-literate fragmented style of writing.
“Guilty Party” is still, lyrically, very fragmented, and it
works to create very vivid sketches—but rather than fictional characters, or
ambiguous ideas, Berninger fragments himself, working to build a stark
narrative of the tensions of a relationship.
I say your name; I say
I’m sorry
Throughout, there are (possibly intentional) callbacks to
other National songs—including the aforementioned “About Today.” The song opens
with a sleepless narrator: “You’re
sleeping night and day. How’d you do it? Me, I am wide awake, feeling defeated,”
mirroring the dramatically paced conversation from “About Today”—“Hey, are you awake?” “Yeah I’m right here.”
“Can I ask you about today? How close am I to losing you?”
As the song continues, Berninger mentions the summer—a
season he has wrote into two songs on High
Violet, “Lemonworld” and “Conversation 19”; and near the end, he laments, “It all catches up to me, all the time” reminiscent of the very
real portrait of depression he painted on “Pink Rabbits.”
Musically, the song further shows the band’s embracement of dissonance
and electronic elements. Drummer Bryan Devendorf’s percussion slides in
effortlessly alongside the drum machine, while brother Scott’s high notes on
the bass fold nicely into the mix, chugging the rhythm along, as swirling
guitar plucks, warm synthesizers, and somber, downcast piano fill in the rest
of the sonic landscape.
“I’m no holiday,”
Berninger confesses early in the song, and by the end, he’s spiraled deeper
into self-deprecation and bearing the burden of the rift in this relationship—“I just got nothing—nothing left to say.”
In an interview late last year, Berninger explained that he
and his wife, Carin Besser, co-wrote
a number of the lyrics for Sleep Well
Beast together. “Marriage is hard,” he said while discussing the
experience, which he ultimately deemed a health thing for the both of them. And
he’s right. Marriage is hard. You can be “happily married,” but still struggle,
and it’s that inward honesty that makes “Guilty Party” such an important and
urgent song—both for the band themselves, as well as the audience who has grown
with them over the last decade plus.
Sleep Well Beast arrives on September 8th, via 4AD. Those who pre-order receive downloads of both of the aforementioned new songs.
Sleep Well Beast arrives on September 8th, via 4AD. Those who pre-order receive downloads of both of the aforementioned new songs.
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