There are few things in popular music that are as sorry as being a middle-aged The National fan at this point in time. The days when the New York quintet released their startlingly brilliant masterpieces – Alligator and Boxer – have long passed us by, like the very artefacts of lost youth the group is keen to serenade. Gifted with two pairs of brothers – the Dessners and the Devendorfs – who played startlingly beautiful, ramshackle, stumbling music, with the energy of a drunk teenage model, the two albums became eternal in the canon of urban Americana.
But it was the poetic genius of lead singer Matt Berninger that cemented the band’s gestalt as nocturnal literates. His voice laced with red wine and the infertile frustration of lonely husbands, he dipped into the style of Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac and Tennessee Williams, conjuring an eternal Manhattan that seems to only exist in movies and drunk exploits. After the decent, but already somewhat muted High Violet, the band suffered a long, gradual decline. Berninger sounded boring, the song structures became untangled, the nights turned into work days.
Besides some interesting sonic experimentations and geometric guitar lines on the likeable Sleep Well Beast, the band sounded like burnt out fathers on Trouble Will Find Me, I Am Easy to Find and the thoroughly bland First Two Pages of Frankenstein – a history of repetitions, slowed down rhythms and uninspired leads, underscored by Berninger sounding like he’s about to head to sleep.
So it was with quite a bit of elation to find that 2023’s Laugh Track, coming as a “sister album” to …Frankenstein, was actually thoroughly enjoyable, with some standout tracks, a return to faster pacing and Berninger sounding genuinely engaged. This positive development was thrilling, but also came with the anxiety that it could be a fluke, an accident, some re-distributed b-sides that teased that The National still had it, before the next dive into mediocrity was to follow.
Get Sunk, Berninger’s second solo album, thus carries not just the weight of being conceived minus the dual duos who initially pushed The National forward into progressive territory, but also the expectation that it continues this long anticipated upwards drift.
Indeed, Berninger sounds better here than he has in a long time: rejuvenated, invested and emotional, his vocal performances hit every mark. The quiet ballad “Breaking Into Acting”, a duet with Hand Habits, could have fit onto Boxer, as Berninger portraits a melodramatic person whose “mouth is always full of blood packets”, as they attempt to cheat their way through life.
Lead single “Bonnet of Pins” journals the sudden reappearance of a soulmate, as Berninger’s voice is infused with regrets and admiration, to some of his best writing in recent memory: “She sidewinders through the room to me / With a real cigarette and a Styrofoam coffee / She’s still wearing her father’s feather jacket / She holds out her hands and I stand to receive her / Trying to remember the last time I’d seen her / Somehow she looks younger now”. Yes, the song could have used the stumbling rhythm section of the Devendorfs, but uncluttered, it has the grace of an R.E.M. song, ca. New Adventures in Hi-Fi, as Berninger works himself to the climactic bridge, raising his voice as he insists: “I know that you miss me / This stuff takes a lifetime”. It’s one of the best radio songs of the year.
Then there’s the brilliant “Nowhere Special”, which is reminiscent of Pulp’s spoken-word pieces. Berninger starts out as a lulling, drunk man whose thoughts are all over the place, picking up the core vocal melody, only to lose it again to dive into a list of kaleidoscopic, disillusioned recollections, which contrast the sparkling emerald guitar lines that give the track the tone of a Slowdive song. The contrast of the pretty composition with Berninger’s monotone, rushed delivery is incredibly cinematic and engaging, as Berninger realises “I sound sick and schizophrenic”, only to continue, defeated: “You know what? / You know what? / I love you.” There’s also the gorgeous “No Love”, which chronicles a fading – or non-existent – love, and the affecting folk song “Little by Little”, which toys with surreal imagery to slowly pirouette around the desire to stand and fight.
There’s shades in these songs of Dylan and Springsteen, Adams and Stipe. Small hooks and clever compositions keep the interest even on fourth, fifth, 10th listen. Where throughout many National albums it felt like the chronicle of deeply talented people losing their inspirations, Get Sunk shows a musician who’s not giving up, who’s forcing every drop of intrigue out of his songs and performances. The suspicion arises that the sheer talent of the five musicians have recently created a push-and-pull, that ultimately confuses what the songs are about, and how strong their core is.
Even a song like “Junk”, which suffers a little under its own prosaic sentimentalism (“You can have me, baby / Do what you want / Take me all apart / I’m only junk”) fully blooms thanks to a really beautiful arrangement. Yet it’s palpable that the quality of the songs takes a bit of a dive in the album’s final stretch. Thankfully, “Times of Difficulty” (an echo of Ryan Adams’ “Answering Bell”) picks that short slump up. Here, Berninger sounds desolate, but optimistic, as he wonders about an absent lover who keeps their distance: “I’ll think of you if you think of me / The way the sky thinks of the sea […] / Feels like we missed another summer / If we’re not dying, then what are we?” It perfectly encapsulates the slightly intoxicated, heartbroken, luminescent energy that catapulted Berninger from smoke-filled clubs into the arenas of this world.
Yes, Get Sunk is not a flawless affair – it sometimes still feels a little torn between emotional poignancy and comfortable adult defeatism, and some moments almost demand a more aggressive, forlorn brevity. But Berninger’s second solo effort is a rich and satisfying listen, evading the generic bland arrogance of The National’s low points. It’s simple but affecting, urban but artsy. It’s a record to revisit while home alone, having a drink and listening to the summer cicadas outside the open window. No matter our age, we never lose our dreams, some of us just close their eyes to the sight of them. Get Sunk demands to face our loss, and address our needs. Be brave, maybe it pays off.
