Album Review: The National - Laugh Track

Something’s wrong with me, like it always is.

I have not been doing well—and really, I haven’t been for quite some time, if we’re being honest. Though, I mean, given how poorly, overall, things have been going over the last three, or four years, are any of us, really, doing well? 

As well as we could be?

As well as we might want to be?

There have been times, yes, and at current, there are certainly times, and there will undoubtedly still be times in the future, both distant and not, where it seems like many of us are just barely surviving.

And, of course, there were the years that, comparatively, were better than others. 

And, of course, there were the years that I guess were just so outwardly bad or bleak for me personally that I have been, somehow, able to block out as much of them as I could, or at least, I have been able to erase as many memories as possible of just how outwardly bad or bleak things had become. 

I am reminded of these years, or at least this period of time, and while I am grateful that I do have barely any recollection of it at all, it is still extremely unsettling to be unable to account for a specific and arguably recent part of my life. 

I am reminded of these years, and I find it ironic, or tragic, that my brain did perhaps block or erase these memories as means of self-preservation, because, if we are being honest, I have certainly become increasingly less and less interested in preserving myself at all.

And, of course, there were the years that, comparatively, were better than others. 

Or, at least, years that I like to now think or believe, were better than the others, where things, for me, felt like they were not so outwardly bad, or bleak. The years that I have not had to block out, or have ultimately erased from my memory.

But I have not been doing well, and, really, I have not been for quite some time. 

And it is because of the long, dark shadow of depression that I am never really able to stay as many steps ahead of as I’d like, and because of the insomnia that keeps me up at night, and because of the chronic, passive suicidal ideation that I am regularly staring down often within moments of opening my eyes every morning—it is because of all of these realities and myriad others that I, in part, and admittedly a rather large one, that I am not exactly able to “take comfort,” or even find it, because of the emotional discomfort I do reside in, but I suppose I find a form of solace within the lyricism of contemporary popular music. 

I find that solace, quite often an unflattering but familiar reflection of a mirror I try to avoid looking into, in the songwriting of The National. 

Something’s wrong with me, like it always is.

*

The release of Laugh Track, The National’s tenth studio album, and ultimately a companion piece to or continuation of First Two Pages of Frankenstein, which the group had released in April of this year, came as both a surprise and not.

It came as a surprise because of the way it was announced, more or less by word of mouth, after an on-stage announcement from the band during the first night of their Homecoming festival in Cincinnati, in mid-September—with limited edition “white label” vinyl pressings available for sale in the festival’s merchandise stand, the news of Laugh Track’s imminence spread across the internet, over the weekend, before its arrival (digitally, at least), at midnight on Monday, September 18th. 

It came as a surprise because it was released into the world in a way that made for a sharp contrast to the traditional strategy of its immediate predecessor—a few cryptic clues before an announcement in January, with a steady, albeit slow rollout, of singles, leading up to April, and First Two Pages of Frankenstein’s arrival in full. 

But that is, I suppose, the point of an unexpected, or “surprise” release—is to break tradition in strategy and rollout.

It, to some, was apparently not a surprise prior to the announcement during the band’s set at the Homecoming festival, because, according to the predominately backhanded and/or dismissive review from Stereogum, apparently the album’s tracklist and cover art did leak onto the internet in August (but where?); additionally, The National’s drummer, Bryan Devendorf had fessed up to the album’s existence in an interview early in September (again, where?.)

It, to some, was apparently not a surprise, because the band had, just weeks prior, issued two singles, “Alphabet City,” which is sequenced as the paranoid and tense opening track on Laugh Track, as well as the album’s literal and figurative centerpiece, the sprawling and explosive “Space Invaders”—singles released with little if any context, giving the hope, or implication, that another album, or at least a collection of b-sides from the Frankenstein sessions was on the horizon.

It, to some, and to me, maybe, even, was apparently not a surprise because upon the original announcement of First Two Pages of Frankenstein, a member of the band—it was Devendorf, fittingly, who first began hinting at the existence of a companion piece or continuation when he alluded to the decision not include “Weird Goodbyes,” the band’s one-off single from 2022, on the record, but that it would have a “future home.” 

Laugh Track is not the anthesis to Frankenstein, nor is it a funhouse mirror reflection—spread across 12 tracks, including two of the band’s longest studio recordings to date, it does expand on the themes that were very present throughout Frankenstein, while also providing a little more narrative or context to the well-documented emotionally charged and often tense circumstances and dynamics within The National that led to the writing and recording of these songs. 

Anecdotally much more cohesive in tone, and even perhaps even livelier from beginning to end, than Frankenstein, it is the sound of a band that, well over two decades into their career and ten albums in, have certainly found their niche or at least the kind of aesthetic they are, at this point, the most comfortable operating within, for better or for worse, but it is also the sound of a band that is still very willing and interested in pushing themselves into compelling, and at times, unpredictable places, and that even if and when it becomes a little uneven, it does make for a fascinating and regularly poignant collection that could both stand alone, and a continuation or part or a slightly larger whole.

*

Something’s wrong with me, like it always is.

And I suppose that you cannot, or perhaps should not, talk about The National, or Laugh Track, or First Two Pages of Frankenstein, without getting into some kind of discussion, or at least noting, about how as they convened to begin recording sessions for the albums, principal lyricist and lead singer Matt Berninger’s writer’s block had, at that point, been a problem for almost two years—spiraling into a major depression, while feeling uncertain if he’d ever find his way back.

And in his uncertainty about if he’d ever find his way back as a songwriter, he was equally more uncertain about the fate of the band, or what kind of role he could play in it if he couldn’t write. 

In an interview during the cycle for First Two Pages, the band commented that things had, within the group’s dynamic, been tense or argumentative before when they’ve been in the studio, but this time, because of Berninger’s mental health and inability to write, it was the most fragile things had ever felt in the two decade’s since forming.

Berninger’s lyrics, specifically the further along in the band’s canonical work you get, do deal pretty directly, or without much dressing up, with depression and anxiety, though he’s never been as direct in his observations and experiences as he was on First Two Pages—and so it should not be a surprise of any kind to learn that the songs on Laugh Track are written in a similar way, or a similar, somewhat therapeutic voice.

And I suppose that you cannot, though it might behoove you not to, talk about The National, or Laugh Track, or First Two Pages of Frankenstein, without getting into some kind of discussion or at least noting how over the last decade and change, the band had evolved into a much more robust and theatrical sound—spending the last four of their studio albums finding ways (sometimes the work, other times they leave a little to be desired) to play within more electronic or less organic sounding textures, but outside of the layers of warm, analog beeps and boops, everything as a whole seems much bigger than it had been up until a certain point in their career—the stakes, even internally, to push themselves or to outgrow something, becoming higher. 

The evolution of The National’s sound, certainly since High Violet, but mostly since Sleep Well, Beast, can be, and often is, a source of contention in the way people write about the band now, and perhaps within their listenership. And admittedly, the textures that they have leaned into and the production values they have favored by no longer working with an outside producer but rather self-producing with the band’s multi-instrumentalist and now an unexpected pop music auteur, Aaron Dessner, really at the helm, can be hit or miss, or difficult at times to access for whatever reason.

There are some who will lament it as being boring, forgettable, or sleepier than the band once was in its earliest days—but even within the moments that are a little forgettable, or sleepier than you’d like them to be, or are more of a miss than a hit, or are hard to wrap your head around, Laugh Track does often contain bright flashes that remind you of what was so great about The National in the first place.

Something’s wrong with me, like it always is.

And there was, I think, or at least I often felt, a sense of tension and paranoia, at times, and certainly a claustrophobic kind of darkness, that used to course through some of The National’s earliest material. And it has been a long time since the band has returned to something that remotely resembled the kind of underlying sinister or ominous feeling that a song like “Cherry Tree” had. “Alphabet City,” which does ultimately create a stark opening for Laugh Track, does return, as much as it is able, to that same kind of an unsettling and inevitably explosive and cacophonic feeling.

“Alphabet City” doesn’t exactly set the tone for the 11 songs that do follow it, because even when the album does find itself working from within more genuinely interesting arrangements and structure, there is nothing nearly as creeping as this. It does, in part, because of how it comes together sonically, work well as a commanding opening track—beginning with a glitchy, skittering, almost quivering-sounding guitar, “Alphabet City” is quickly paced, wasting no time before the arrival of equally as urgent, minimal percussive elements and tightly plucked acoustic guitar notes come spiraling in at a dizzying pace. 

Musically, what is so impressive about “Alphabet City” is how the song is unrelenting in its momentum, but it is also truly a momentum that is sustained—The National never seems to want to pull it back any, but they also have a tight grip on everything so that it never runs the risk of truly getting away from them, or taking off somewhere, even as more and more elements are piled on, like small flickers of electric guitar, a thick rolling bass line, sharp bursts of snare drum hits, and an eerie, icy string accompaniment that continues to slice back and forth dramatically underneath it all. 

And in that—all of that, it does effortlessly craft a sense of visceral tension as it continues toward its conclusion, though that tension then is never released, with all the elements gently finding their respective exits.

The song, musically, in how it swirls and does envelop you, is hypnotic—guiding you into the world that the band has built within it, but it is, of course, Matt Berninger here—both in his vocal performance and delivery, as well as the writing itself, that make “Alphabet City” as daring and impactful as it is.

In The National’s earliest days, even leading up to Boxer, it was pretty apparent at times that Beringer was still finding his way as a singer—an unhinged frontman, often drinking too much during live performances and nervously pacing around the stage, jumping off the bass drum, or flailing himself into the audience at times, he was still trying to find his voice, or at least become more comfortable in how he used it. His rumbling baritone can be soothing, yes, but it took him a long time to actually “sing”—because there are a number of places where he is doing like a talk/sing kind of delivery that, at the time, certainly served the band’s sound.

What is surprising about “Alphabet City” is that Berninger does return to that kind of talk/sing delivery at times, in the verses but also at the moment leading up to the chorus—“All of your lonesomeness kept you in your wallet,” Berninger deadpans. “Nobody notices—baby, you got this.”

And if “Alphabet City,” structurally, is a bit of a callback or a connection to the band’s earlier, darker-sounding material, the lyricism also recalls the earlier, much more shadowy and ambiguous days in Berninger’s writing.

Somewhere between High Violet and Trouble Will Find Me, Berninger’s became more and more literal, and less vague and fragmented—vague, and fragmented, was what made the band’s breakout album Alligator such a breath of fresh air when it was released nearly 20 years ago—it was like a dream you were on the verge of being able to figure out in terms of the bizarre narratives and vivid yet murky imagery Berninger was weaving in.

There is a haunting kind of loneliness that ripples through the imagery in “Alphabet City,” and even in just how poetically disjointed it is, one can surmise that it is a song that deals with both the isolation from the onset of the pandemic, as well as Berninger’s mental health crisis during that time. “I don’t miss the world—not the way it was,” he begins in a bold opening line. “I can’t get there. Try to think of it, always at a loss—I can’t get there.”

In terms of lyricism, throughout their canonical works, and mostly in the past, there were times when Berninger would recycle or repurpose specific lyrics or phrases—but The National has seemed to move away from this throughout the last decade, however, something that I have noticed—noticing it, certainly, in 2022 when “Weird Goodbyes” was issued as a stand-alone new song, is that the song did include a lot of subtle nods or references to imagery used in other songs—a means of tethering the band’s past to its present in a sense. 

And there is a surprising thread, or recurring idea, that is found in a few places on Laugh Track—with its first appearance happening in “Alphabet City,” during the second verse, when Berninger sings, his voice resonating loudly, “Take forever off, anytime you want—I’ll save your place. If anybody asks, I’ll say you’re coming back. We’ll just have to wait.”

Even though “Alphabet City” remains within this swirling pool of tension throughout its entirety, Berninger’s writing, too, remains within the shadows, and rarely steps out, but does end up becoming more and more compelling the further the song pulls us in, with the most thought-provoking and memorable lines arriving after the halfway point, like the unsettling, strangely funny, and alluring, “Sometimes I wanna drive around and find you—and act like it’s a random thing,” he declares, in an apparent nod to something that multi-instrumentalist and string arranger Bryce Dessner actually has done, or tried to do, in the past. “I always wonder if you ever feel like I blew all chances of this happening.”

Near the end of the song, in both its third verse and final chorus, Berninger returns to the isolation, and despair, that he began with. “I’m not over it—don’t know what it is,” he explains. “I can’t get there,” before uttering one of the earliest phrases on the record that did connect with me most in a personal and devastating way: “Something’s wrong with me, like it always is—I can’t get there.”

The song’s final line, too, refers back to how it began, but also walks the line between the themes introduced of both an unsettling fear that one can never shake, a palpable and seemingly desperate longing, and a terrible sadness.

Sometimes, I barely recognize this place—when you’re with me, I don’t miss the world.

*

The thing about First Two Pages of Frankenstein was that there were moments of brilliance—it was a little front-loaded with its best or most accessible material, much of which had been issued as singles in the months leading up to the album’s arrival. And in those moments of brilliance, there were also missteps; not too many, or, not enough to really detract from the reserved and pensive place the album as a whole was maybe trying to build itself up within, and then ultimately out of. 

There are no real missteps on Laugh Track—even the songs that are a little puzzling, or just do not work as well as you may want them to, are not unlistenable and are forgivable for their inclusion, but the thing that, I think, has made critics and some fans frustrated with The National, and where they are at now, sonically, is how much time they can and often spend within a much slower, gentler aesthetic. 

And even with how bombastic or unpredictable parts of Laugh Track can be, there are still moments when the pacing dips, but even if, for some, this version of The National is not their favorite, or the most ideal to listen to, lyrically there are songs included in this set that are still worth mentioning, like the titular track, certainly, which features an arguably underused guest turn from Phoebe Bridgers, as well as the late sequenced and seemingly malicious, or at least morally ambiguous “Tour Manager.”

Musically, it maybe is entirely too easy to say that “Laugh Track” is forgettable or at least unmemorable because of how gentle it is—allegedly sharing some sonic similarities with “Invisible String,” which the band’s Aaron Dessner co-wrote with Taylor Swift in 2020, it is one of the songs included that moves at a more glacial pace. 

It is pretty sounding, sure, in its delicacy, and it is the very kind of gentle aesthetic it takes in terms of its structure that creates such a stark contrast with Berninger’s lyrics—his writing, here, too, with the words falling into the melody that exists, do their best to if not distract you from the severity of what he’s depicting, but certainly the band is attempting some amount of misdirection, which means that it does take a few listens through, or a really concentrated effort, to understand the gravity. 

And there is certainly a poetic way to how Berninger strings these thoughts, and feelings together in “Laugh Track,” specifically once he arrives at the chorus, but there are fragments, or phrases throughout, that does show just how personal of a song it is intended to be, and again, explores how difficult the last few years have been.

“All I am is shreds of doubt,” Berninger sings near the end of the first verse, before heading into the poignancy of the second: “And you don’t know how to deal with me—you don’t know how that feels,” he continues. “It all comes apart so easily, and you’re running out of ideas.”

And he does return to the disbelief in himself, or, rather, that he will ever find a way out of both his writer’s block, and the gradual sinking into a debilitating depression, in a later verse—“Maybe we’ll never light up. Maybe this isn’t gonna quit,” he sings. “I think it’s never coming back. Maybe we’ve always been like this.”

And it is that kind of stark, self-effacing observational writing that, even in how sleepy it might be musically, makes “Laugh Track” one of the more emotionally surprising songs on the album. Have we always been like this? Has it always been this bad?

“So turn on the laugh track—everyone knows you’re a wreck,” Berninger sings, in a way, to himself, or at least about himself, in the chorus. “You’re never this quiet—your smile is cracking. You just haven’t found what you’re looking for.”

Then, a few lines later, he reflects with a pensive, manic kind of wonder. “Maybe this is just the funniest version of us that we’ve ever been.”

Have we always been like this? Has it always been this bad?

Something’s wrong with me. Like it always is.

Like “Laugh Track,” and perhaps similar in tone to a handful of songs scattered throughout the album, “Tour Manager” is, at least in its arranging, coming from a place of restraint—but the genuinely interesting thing about the way it is structured is that it does seem, like at any point, the grip that the band has on the song could loosen a little, and they could, and maybe should have, let it get away from them even slightly. In not doing that, though, and allowing it to oscillate in this reserve, with even as kind of, gentle, and ultimately somber and beautiful as it can be, paired with the uncertainty and vagaries of the lyrics, it does, seemingly without much effort at all, create something that is surprising in just how unsettling it is upon arrival. 

In its writing, and the vivid but fragmented narrative that unfolds just as delicately as the instrumentation that floats around it, “Tour Manager” comes from a place of pleading, and of desperation, and within those pleas, and within that very urgent kind of desperation, it does keep a lot of things close to the chest w/r/t what, exactly, the power dynamic between the song’s protagonist, presumably Berninger, or a slightly fictionalized version of himself, and Alice—the name that is mentioned in the assuring chorus, who is presumably the titular Tour Manager.

Berninger, or whoever is asking things of Alice, the Tour Manager, begins the song by requesting she figure out a way to get him out of evening plans. “Maybe you can say I wanted to make it but won’t get back in time,” he suggests slyly. “It’s beautiful how you can find a good excuse for anything,” Berning continues. “None of them are cheap, but how long can you keep on covering?”

And that is, I think, what makes a song like “Tour Manager,” so compelling is what it opts to reveal and what it chooses to keep as a secret, because the need for an excuse as to why one is unable, or unwilling, or uninterested, in attending something they were expected to be at, begins to suggestively shift into a different, and murkier place. 

“I don’t want to talk about—don’t like the way it sounds,” Berninger confesses before continuing, a line later, to ask more of Alice. “Wanna keep it kinda quiet—gonna try to keep it down. I know you know what I mean—you’ve seen me here before. Say the bubble left without me and don’t say anymore.”

In the third verse, there is a slight change in a lyric that is revisited that, in its execution, does continue to imply that there is something happening here, but what that something is, is just left up to speculation and the imagination of the listener which is both a little frustrating for those of us who may want some kind of immediate and direct explanation, but it does also provide this feeling of unease and suspicion that does make “Tour Manager” so imaginatively compelling.

“Let me know when you’re free—I gotta tell you something I believe in. It came to me while I was waking up from something I was dreaming,” Berninger continues in his pleadings. “It’s beautiful how we can find a good elusive for anything. None of them are cheap, but how long can we keep on covering?”

The chorus, then, is a single phrase, repeated twice, very deliberate in how the words tumble out into the music—and it is less of a demand, but it is one more thing asked of the titular character. 

Play it like it’s nothing, Alice.

*

In the way that they can be, or as much as they allow themselves to be, The National, at least over the last decade, have slowly leaned in and embraced how much sorrow, or sadness, is inherently in their music, and what kind of audience that does typically attract.

And I would make an argument that there is a difference, or a distinction, between what The National is doing, and what listeners often write off as “dad rock.” I’d make an argument, yes, and I would be willing to entertain the notion that there might be a little bit of an overlap, but not as much as you might initially think. I think The National are smarter, and better than that—but maybe, as someone writing analytically about music, at least here, I am biased because even though I can admit that Laugh Track is a flawed album, The National have been, and still are, one of my absolute favorite bands.

There’s this clip that circulated on the band’s social media around the time of First Two Pages of Frankenstein’s release of David Letterman talking about the band, and he called them “your saddest friend’s favorite band”—he’s not wrong. And the band themselves, last fall, released both a tote bag, and a hooded sweatshirt, emblazoned with the phrase “Sad Dads” on it—something that I literally could not purchase fast enough.

The members of The National might be fathers, and many of them might be sad—both Berninger and Aaron Dessner have been very open about their mental health, and that openness, and how it finds its way into their lyrics, is something that certainly kept me interested in the band as they have grown and matured over time. But also, in that sadness or sorrow, it is how Berninger reflects on his anxieties, and his relationship with his wife, that, at this point in my own life, resonates the hardest.

And maybe the domestic scenes and depictions of minor marital discourse or misunderstandings, from the point of view of a depressed and anxious person, might not be that compelling to every listener—I respect that, sure, but as a depressed and anxious person who does find themselves in a number of similar domestic scenes or minor martial discourses and misunderstandings, the music of The National still does often leave me feeling seen and attacked.

Sequenced back to back, after the halfway mark on Laugh Track, the damn near twangy “Hornets,” and the gentle, uneasy spiraling of “Coat on A Hook” place Berninger firmly in the discomfort and anxiety he depicts within a domestic scene or martial discourse and misunderstandings, however minor. 

“Hornets,” is structured around a kind of slow build, but similar to a number of the other songs included here, the build only goes so far, or the band is only really willing to take it so far. The instruments continue to file in the further along in the song you are taken, but it never gets to be too much, or too raucous, and very naturally arrives at the place where it is the most comfortable and opts not to go any further. The implications of a twang¹, though, are simply implied—it is subtle, and maybe I am ultimately hearing something that I want to hear, or want to feel, that isn’t really even there. But there is a kind of lonely, swaying, and shuffling nature to the song’s rhythm, and the melody—and specifically from the guitar, used as a punctuation between verses—are what helps create this kind of a feeling.

There is a sprawling nature to the way Berninger delivers the lyrics to “Hornets,” which, outside how personal and reflective he becomes with in those lyrics, is what makes it, even in how restrained it can be, a standout on the record.

It is difficult to describe, and perhaps for someone who might know more about the technical details of songwriting and structure, it might be easier to articulate what is happening while the words are unfolding—repetition is used, yes, or at least certain phrases are returned to throughout and used as anchors within the song, but it is kind of dizzying and unpredictable in how it does all unfold—when something will be repeated, or returned to, or if, like the most poignant segment, only sung once.

There are a lot of questions asked at the beginning of “Hornets,” and some of them do have little if anything to do with the conceit of the song—it isn’t until the lines, “Why do they always say everything’s for the best when everybody knows it’s not,” that we understand the direction Berninger will be taking us in, and the kind of difficult, yet honest, things he is painting a stark, vivid portrait of. 

“I don’t wanna talk because I don’t wanna fight,” he confesses, in a line that is returned to throughout the song. “We always get bogged down in the heavy shit—you know what it’s like,” the song continues, before taking a surprising, clever turn in just how the words are very deliberately placed in time, within the music, for a very specific, emotional effect.

“I don’t wanna leave, and I don’t wanna hide. I just don’t want to run,” Berninger is explaining before taking a slight pause, and adding, “Into you tonight.”

“Hornets,” like “Alphabet City,” and like “Coat on A Hook,” is one of the places where the idea of someone—a loved one—leaving (perhaps unexpectedly) and never returning, is explored within its lyricism. Here it is in the song’s middle verse, which is its most impactful simply in the unease and anxieties it portrays. “I don’t need to be rescued, I just need to be pinned,” Berninger exclaims within the first line. “Not being in love with you isn’t easy to fake,” he says a few lines later. “When I don’t know if you’re ever gonna come back from your cigarette break.”

“Coat on A Hook,” actually, opens from within this idea—though, here, there is much more of an urgency involved, and the stakes seem like they have never been higher with discourse in and outside of the home.

Berninger’s writing, in its evolution, has become more direct and much less murky, but “Coat on A Hook,” most notably in its latter half, gives him the opportunity to wander back into an ambiguous darkness through the use of startling imagery—an image, or description, that ultimately goes unexplained, leaving the listener with this lingering sense of unease.

“Don’t leave me here at the is party like a coat on a hook,” Berninger pleads in the song’s opening line. “Two days—we’re still not talking. You’re the opposite of an open book. Come back for me,” he continues, perhaps growing a little more manic already this early in the song. “Everyone’s nervous and looking at their feet. I ask the same questions to everyone I see.”

The emergent nature of needing to find someone who has temporarily disappeared, for whatever reason, and the palpable anxieties that come from wondering if they will ever return continue in the first chorus, as well as the second verse—“What am I missing? Where have you been? What if they ask me about it? Where would I begin?,” Berninger quietly sings; then, a few lines later, really cuts through any doubt someone might have about his “wife guy”² energy when he utters, “Don’t feel like myself anymore when you’re not around.”

“Coat,” in its domestic scenes, and then later fragmented imagery, is set against one of Laugh Track’s gentler arrangements, though it does clip along at a much faster pace than some of the other sleeper songs on the record—everything lands delicately in how it swirls around, but the swirling has more momentum to it, which does make it among the more genuinely interesting tunes among this set, especially the further it goes, with the weirder the narrative suddenly becomes.

And it is within this shift in the narrative that Berninger does inadvertently bring the song into a place that—at least for me, and maybe it is because of something I am continually working on, or trying to work through, in terms of understanding the dynamic of a once close friendship that has, within the last year, gone through a number of changes, and no longer feels as close as it once was, with no real way to express that tactfully—was surprisingly upsetting and resonant.

“Friendships are melting; nothing is helping,” he begins. “Nothing’s worth keeping, promises cheapen. Two years since I saw you last curling your hair with your pistol, telling me not to be so melodramatic.”

*

And it has been pointed out to me, at least somewhat recently—within the last year, that I am, at my core, extremely sentimental and earnest toward people with whom I am the closest. 

The extent of the sentimentality, or earnestness, can, I think, be a little surprising to be on the receiving end of at times, and might be a little off-putting if you are not expecting it, or if you are uncertain how to reciprocate, or even what to do with it. 

And if not off-putting, perhaps just a little “much.”

Though, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it isn’t too much, or off-putting, depending on who you are being sentimental and earnest with. 

The sentimentality, usually, does manifest itself most often in the form of vocalized gratitude and appreciation—the appreciation for the space someone has made for me within their life, or the gratitude that I have to simply have met that person, and to know them at all. 

And this does not happen all that often, in these moments of unabashed gratitude and appreciation for someone, but there are times where I, in my sentimental state, begin to wonder—at times, just to myself, others, aloud, how my life, or this other person’s life, might be different, if we hadn’t met, or had met under different circumstances, or met at a different part of our lives. 

Among the longest or at least the most sprawling songs that The National have recorded in their career, and functioning as Laugh Track’s centerpiece, is “Space Invader,” which, outside of its audacious running time of nearly seven minutes which, I have learned can be a difficult ask for some listeners, regardless of how much they may love an artist, is a song that is truly the finest on the record, and one of the most breathtaking, thoughtful, and cathartic of their canon. 

Musically, “Space Invader” is made up of two very distinct parts, which is how the band is ultimately able to sustain it for upwards of seven minutes—with the second part being a complete surprise in just how explosive it grows to be, which is something that is still honestly surprising, or affecting, with each listen. 

And in the song’s writing, “Space Invader” places Berninger in both the somewhat recent present of working through writer’s block and his poor mental health—and presumably the toll that had taken on his wife Carin Besser, and then juxtaposes that with a vivid, poetic, earnest chorus that explores the various “what if”’s from the early days of their relationship in New York City. 

The emphasis of the song, or at least within the first part, is placed on exploring that duality of not exactly the life “not lived” or path “not chosen,” but a suggestion rather that things would ultimately be different if certain encounters had not happened, or had happened differently. The reflections on Berninger, in current day, or at least during the last few years, are not unimportant to the song’s narrative, though, and the brief observations he does make, cloaked in a little bit of literate ambiguity, have a sadness to them, or at least the feeling that he is concerned about failing, or disappointing, those around him and those closest to him, like his spouse, or his bandmates.

“It’ll come to me later like a space invader,” he mumbles more than once in the song. “And I won’t be able to get it out of my head,” he continues, with a kind of optimism that his ability to write will inevitably return.

The second verse, then, finds Berninger turning further inward and revealing more of the doubt that he had, at least during this time, in his ability to write, while also managing to connect to the sentimentality and earnestness of the chorus with the thinnest of threads. “It was too romantic,” he concedes. “It was sad and frantic—a paperback book in the storm drain. It could go number one if it copied an earworm,” he continues. “From a melody I wish I’d had.”

And it has been pointed out to me at least somewhat recently—within the last year, certainly, that I am, at my core, extremely sentimental and earnest toward people with whom I am the closest. And I think maybe, though perhaps I am mistaken about how I am or can be perceived prior to this part of my personality being revealed, that I can be a surprise, and can be surprising to be on the receiving end of.

And this sentimentality usually does manifest itself most often in the form of regularly vocalized gratitude and appreciation—the appreciation, for example, for the space that someone has made for me within their life, or the gratitude I have to simply have met that person, and to know them at all. 

And it does not happen all that often, but sometimes, in these moments of unabashed gratitude and appreciation for someone, there are times when, in my sentimental state, I do begin to wonder—at times simply to myself, but other times, certainly aloud—how my life, or this person’s life, might be different if we had not met at all, had met under different circumstances, or had met within a different part of our lives.

It is the kind of sentimentality that does, then, make you, or at least me, extremely grateful to have met someone how I did, and when I did, and to want to hang onto them a little bit tighter because of it. 

Berninger has, at least over the course of the last few National albums, written about his affection for his wife, or at least written her in as a character of sorts, and she—at one time a fiction editor—has been credited as a co-writer on a number of songs. But specifically in a song like “Space Invader,” as well as the dizzying, breezy, earnest “New Order T-Shirt,” from First Two Pages, has he gone back to the beginning of their relationship in a pre-9/11 New York.

“What if I’d never written the letter I slipped in the sleeve of the record I gave you?,” he asks in the emotionally charged chorus. “What I’d stayed on the C train until Lafayette—what if we’d never met,” he continues, painting an evocative picture of his life in the city. “What if I’d only just done what you told me and never looked back? What if I’d only ducked away down the hallway and faded to black?” 

Musically, there is a natural, though slight, rise and fall within “Space Invader”’s first half—more of a relaxed, or quiet feeling during the brief verses, with the percussive elements more or less dropping out until they come tumbling back in during the chorus which, the further along this half gets, the more intensity or momentum those have behind them, with Burning reliving this sentimentality until it becomes like a mantra, before things do seem like they have reached a natural conclusion—which is when the second part begins creeping in, including a glitchy, blippy ripple, coming from a synthesizer, underscoring the thundering nature with which the drumming does return, along with an icy string accompaniment, and searing, though understated electric guitar riffs. 

To describe the second half of “Space Invader” as powerful, or overwhelming, or a form of catharsis bursting at the seams does sell short just how affecting it all is, and can become as you listen, because it does become, the longer it builds and builds, less about listening, and more about experiencing the moment that it is creating. 

A little over three minutes into the song, with roughly four minutes remaining, the momentum of “Space Invader” up until that point gently slows down, and then is pulled, or slides, into the tension that begins building immediately from the jumble of sounds from within the second half that, over the course of this second movement, build and build until they break apart with both a ferocity and a surprising beauty. 

The sentimentality of the song’s first half disappears, too, within this second half, and is replaced with a Berninger appearing perplexed, though one of the two phrases that he repeats like an incantation—the phrase itself esoteric and requires a little bit of explanation.

The words are honestly a little hard to make out, specifically because Berninger is truly mumbling them quietly and nervously, speaking them in the lowest possible range his booming baritone will go—which is juxtaposed with the growing chaotic build-up of the band behind him, creating a wall of noise that does inevitably take over the song, but what he says, over and over again, is, “Quarter after four in the morning—my heart’s software gore.”

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to find an explanation of what, exactly, “software gore” is—there is, unsurprisingly, an entire portion of Reddit dedicated to examples of it, and after thinking about it, the idea of it does make sense, and does create a stark portrait, when used in “Space Invaders” as a metaphor, albeit a rather heavy-handed one.

“Software Gore” is, I guess, an expression used to describe when a piece of software malfunctions in a way beyond its normal operation—and I suppose there is someone, or a certain type of person, who finds that concept, and examples of it, genuinely interesting. But what I am more interested in is Berninger’s use of this idea—of something malfunctioning beyond its normal operation—within the context of the song, w/r/t his heart. 

And it is not the idea of the heart malfunctioning, as a metaphor, that is the most interesting thing here—but it is the question that goes unanswered, and maybe isn’t really even directly asked but is implied. What is causing the heart’s software gore? And at this point in the song, are we with Berninger in his past, or his present—or is the line representative of both?

The other phrase that is uttered, even lower, and even harder to discern within the way “Space Invader” comes together, is a literal question that is asked, but no answer provided—“Why’d I leave it like that?”

Musically, the resolve in “Space Invader” comes in the form of the torrential downpour of noise that quickly dissipates, leaving the blippy synthesizer sound echoing out in its wake as it all collapses into a conclusion—lyrically, though, or within the themes of the past and present and the difficulties we find in both of them, or the sentimentality and earnestness that we display around those we are closest to, there is no real resolution or clear answers given for Berninger as he grapples with the “what if”’s of his sentimentality, and what those could both mean within the past, as well as now, the doubt brought on his writer’s block, and the question of what his heart’s malfunction is—and within that malfunction, what to even do about it.

*

And a year later, I am still thinking, regularly, about the things we let go of.

And if I may, over 7,000 words into this reflection on The National, Laugh Track, and all of the weight that a number of these songs did hold for me almost immediately upon my initial listen to the album, I would, if you will allow me to, break the fourth wall briefly, because what can I say, or add, to the conversation about “Weird Goodbyes,” that I did not already say in September of 2022, around the time that the song had been released as a one-off single?

“Weird Goodbyes,” once just something that stood, and stood well, on its own outside of the context of an album, now finds a home, sequenced third in Laugh Track’s running—featuring subtle yet effective backing vocals from Justin Vernon, even after over a year removed from its initial release, hearing it now, it is still just as personally impactful for me w/r/t the themes Berninger presents in it about the utter desperation at times of wanting to be remembered, and about the anxieties and regrets we sit in with saying goodbye—both figuratively as well as literally.

The grief, over a year later, of course, still gets me, and the goodbyes have, despite my best efforts, often remained weird, and after this long, I am still thinking of the things we let go of because we are, really, always letting go, whether we really want to or not.

And there is a kind of letting go—or a wondering of how to do so, or why you have to, and what that means, elsewhere on the record, which in terms of through lines in Berninger’s lyricism, I found it to be a fascinating and slightly comforting kind of insular reference.

Comforting, sure, but also difficult, or just simply hitting a little too close to home.

“Weird Goodbyes” is direct in the sense that it is infectious in how it is constructed—the clear emphasis on the tonal switch between the moody verses, and the slight shimmer that arrives in the chorus, but it is indirect in the sense that yes it is not all that challenging to figure out what the song is about, but what it is about is dressed up through a lot of poetic or at least hyper-literate fragments that sometimes fit together, but other times do not.

The idea, though, of a letting go, or an understanding of what role you play in someone’s life, or how important you are, appears again in “Coat on A Hook,” later in the song, when Berninger utters the phrase, “Friendships are melting—nothing is helping,” and then, just a few lines later, “Two years since I saw you last curling your hair with your pistol telling me not to be so melodramatic.” 

And, over a year later, I am still thinking, regularly, about the things we let go of.

And I am thinking about all of the things that go unsaid, or the conversations that will never happen because I will be told not to be so melodramatic.

*

One of the big criticisms of The National, perhaps from their longtime fanbase but certainly from music writers or sites that, at one time, really touted them early in their career (i.e. Pitchfork and Stereogum), is the kind of literal and figurative sound they have found themselves in over the last few albums. Arguably, the band really reached a perfect balance in 2010 on High Violet, in terms of maintaining some aspects from their breakthrough albums Alligator and Boxer, but also heading toward a more robust, and bombastic sound with complicated and denser arrangements. 

The sustainability of that kind of balance between when the band was really hitting its stride with where that stride ultimately took them is not something that you could truly expect any act, or artist, to keep up from album to album—you also don’t want an artist you love just to keep making the same album over and over again and not challenge themselves to grow further or evolve. 

Since the inclusion of more synthetic textural elements in 2017 on Sleep Well, Beast, regardless of how you feel about the use of keyboards, atmospheric tones, and drum machines within their latter-day body of work, admittedly, they have found their way with these newer additions into their ever-growing sound—it felt more natural in 2019 on I Am Easy to Find, and it feels even more natural and well incorporated both within First Two Pages of Frankenstein, and here on Laugh Track. 

The National is also no longer a young band made up of young men in their late 20s or early 30s—so perhaps their evolution toward a less edgy or ramshackle sound is representative of the band aging gracefully into elder statesman status within “indie rock.” 

And there are both moments of bombast, as well as gentleness of a delicate nature, spread across First Two Pages and on Laugh Track—one of the biggest criticisms of the former was that Bryan Devendorf’s drumming had more or less been replaced throughout the album’s 11 songs with either programmed beats coming from a drum machine, or perhaps a rhythm pounded out on an electric kit or pad, rather than an actual kit. On the latter, the band hasn’t exactly provided a mea culpa for this, but Devendorf’s work behind a live drum kit is a more prevalent element on these dozen songs, which is incredibly welcome. 

At times a little reserved in the rolling nature of it, and what it adds to the songs—I am thinking of the tumbling rhythm of the title track as one example that comes to mind immediately, as well as the rippling undercurrent in “Dreaming”; but there are places where the percussion does reach the pulse-pounding and shattering heights it rightly should, notably in the second half of “Space Invader,” or in the rollicking and brightly colored “Deep End (Paul’s In Pieces.).”

Laugh Track is not, as a whole, inherent of what The National does best, musically speaking, but throughout, even when the pacing can falter at times, there are still huge flashes of impressive brilliance—“Space Invaders” does provide a wide enough lens for the band to demonstrate their capabilities at the moody smolder, as well as an extended built up leading toward an explosion that just keeps detonating in your face. 

And the band’s more recent interest in piling layer upon layer of instrumentation—keyboards, cavernous piano, shimmering electric guitar and finger plucked acoustic, thundering percussion, and subtle bass lines, along with horns, creeping strings, and whatever else they feel like throwing at the canvas, it is all done with intention, and even when it can be a little overwhelming sonically, or just seems like could benefit from a little less, or that Aaron Dessner’s production is just too precise or slick sounding at times, it is, at least for me, impressive that the band continues to push itself forward like this, and challenge both its members to rise to the occasion of just how huge the sound has become, and at times, really does need to become, as well as challenging its audience to follow along and in a sense be patient with the growth.

*

With the time that I have spent, so far, with Laugh Track, something that I have been thinking about along with this collection of songs itself, and framing them, as I have been able to, as their own, self-contained album—there is obviously more to it than that though—is the idea of the continuation, or the companion piece. 

There is a good possibility that, at some point, perhaps before I was alive, or even before I was very aware of very much within the realm of contemporary popular music when I was growing up, there was another instance of this idea—not a double album, but of two individual volumes that can stand on their own but also come together to form a larger whole—prior to the years 2000 and 2001, when Radiohead released Kid A, and then roughly eight months later, released its companion, or continuation, Amnesiac. 

At the time, I was all of 17 and 18 years old, and while I was grateful that my favorite band had opted to release two albums more or less back to back, there was this feeling that, because Amnesiac was arriving second, and was put together from material recorded during the laborious sessions that produced Kid A, it was a lesser album—that it could be looked at as a b-sides collection, or that the songs found within the latter were just not strong enough to stand within the context of the former.

I will be open and honest and say that, regardless of how I have been able to reframe my thinking about Amnesiac, it is not one of my most beloved or favorite albums from the band, though enough time has passed since its release, and I do understand now, as an adult, that there is more to it, and always was more to it, than a b-sides collection.

It does continue the story—taking it in a different direction, yes, but it is part of the larger whole that was meticulously created.

And it might seem like maybe not the best, or most apt comparison to make, but more recently than Kid A and Amnesiac, I do think about Carly Rae Jepsen, and how since the release of her 2015 opus Emotion, she has—often a calendar year later—offered up a companion piece, and each time she has done so, she has seemingly done it with more, and greater, intention, going so far as to, at least for now, not even refer to these companion pieces as b-side collections (which is what she did in 2016, for Emotion, and 2020 for the additional material recorded for Dedicated.) 

For The Loneliest Time, issued roughly a year ago, the companion, or continuation, was given its own title—The Loveliest Time, an effort to ensure that it could work on its own as a self-contained collection of songs, but that it was also something that was part of a much larger whole, or experience. 

The idea of the double album can, and often probably is, a polarizing one—it does take a lot of thought, and effort, to both create and then sustain an idea successfully across multiple sides of vinyl or two compact discs. Double albums run the risk, and perhaps just regular are, a little bloated in terms of how much material is being presented, and the varying quality of said material—and I think the consensus is that many of them might benefit from some self-editing to create something a little more concise.

I Am Easy to Find, from 2019, could be described as one of The National’s most difficult simply because it was released in conjunction with a short film of the same name—with the songs, then, playing a role within the film, but what I do not recall, and maybe it is of no importance, is how much of a role the film played within the development of the songs. 

Two of my favorite National songs—both sad, big surprise, I am sure—are included among I Am Easy to Find, and while there are a number of genuinely interesting moments across its running time, it is an album that did suffer from issues with pacing and focus, and somewhere within its 16 tracks, there is a more concise album waiting to be found with some of the less successful or less compelling tracks cut away.

I say this because somewhere, across both First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track, there is something there—I am uncertain if it would, in fact, be a double album, or if it would just be a single LP that ran a little on the long side—but there are songs that could, and perhaps should have been, cut from the final sequencing on each, and within what is left, there could be a stronger and more focused album—one that plays to the strengths of the band in terms of what they can do an how they can do it, as opposed to each album having respective dips in momentum within the pacing, or at times, dips in the quality or effectiveness of a song.

*

Something’s wrong with me, like it always is.

And it is within the worst moments, or at least when the worst moments last longer than I would perhaps like them to, that I am self-aware enough to understand that something is, in fact, wrong with me. 

Like it always is. Like it always has been.

And it is this feeling—this feeling, that something is wrong with me, as it always is. The feeling of the shadow of a depression that I can never quite get out from under long enough to feel the warmth of the sun. The feeling of the perpetual anxiety in wondering if those I am closest to, or those that I care about the most, are disappointed with me somehow, or if they, in fact, will go on a cigarette break that they’ll never return from. The feeling of sentimentality and earnestness and the wondering of a what if—what if paths had just never crossed, or crossed under different circumstances.

What if a letter went unwritten and never slipped into something for someone to find later on.

The feeling of a heart, for whatever reason, malfunctioning. 

The feeling that, underneath the weight of everything, it all seems a lot more fragile than it ever did before.

Something’s wrong with me. Like it always is. And you see, these are the feelings, or the experiences, as depicted, that keep me returning to The National—the unflattering reflections that are undeniable in how accurately they resonate with me. 

The band continues to evolve, and grow, and it can be frustrating at times, or things can seem like they are going to buckle under the heft of the bombast that often courses through these songs, but neither First Two Pages nor Laugh Track are albums of diminishing returns from a band that was, very recently, fighting for its life in the effort to keep going. 

Laugh Track concludes with the sprawling, unhinged, and ultimately experimental or, if not experimental, at least risky “Smoke Detector,” the album’s longest, clocking in nearly eight minutes. 

With its beginnings in a soundcheck jam, and Berninger free-associating and improvising his lyrics, most of what the band literally bashed out in that moment is recreated here in a studio setting, complete with the somewhat uneven, or arrhythmic feeling to it as the members of the band are quite literally trying to hold the song together as it seems like it is, at any moment, on the verge of collapsing in on itself—an allegory of sorts for what brought The National to the point the arrived at with both First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track. 

It’s a bizarre, though fascinating song to end on, but there is something about its ramshackle, unpredictable, and ferocious nature—specifically the snarling, cavernous sound of Aaron Dessner’s electric guitar—that slightly recalls the band at their darkest or most ominous (Alligator and Boxer.)

And maybe it is because I am a fan, and have been a fan for such a long time, but I do take some issue with the coverage this album received from Pitchfork, which opened by comparing First Two Pages to R.E.M.’s Around The Sun—both albums were released as each respective band was entering into their 24th year, and both, at least in the eyes of the writer, are each respective band’s worst entry. Laugh Track, The National’s tenth album, is not a definitive artistic statement, nor does it want, or need to be—but it is a continued and continually compelling statement from an established band—and the sound of that band reinvesting in itself.

In forming a larger whole, or creating a continuation to First Two Pages, Laugh Track is an album that does ask for the patience of its listener in terms of its tone and pacing, and does, more than anything else, ask you to look further inward not to confront, and not exactly accept, but at least acknowledge the difficult parts of ourselves, doing it with a self-effacing, thoughtful grace. 

^{1 - There is of course the literal twang of “Crumble,” which features Rosanne Cash, and is not like one of the worst songs on the album but it is also not one of the strongest.}

^{2 - I certainly mentioned this when writing about First Two Pages of Frankenstein but Berninger’s writing has, within recent years, slowly moved into territory where like the conceit of a lot of the songs is based around the idea of “I love my wife so much and I am afraid she is going to leave me.” Which is fine. Because at a certain point in life, and in a marriage, this kind of domestic scene and anxiety does really resonate.}

Laugh Track is out now digitally via 4AD with a physical release planned in November.