Album of the Month: May 2007

The National - Boxer

There are a lot of weird and crazy bands out there, making weird noises on their crazy instruments. A lot of them are really good, and their output serves as a reminder that, no matter what you might hear on the radio, not all music sounds exactly the same.

The downside to these bands is that a lot of times their music sounds like they threw every instrument, vocal effect, friend, neighbor, pet, and/or article of clothing at the microphone just to see what would make noise. This often results in something like Avey Tare and Kria Brekkan’s woefully misguided Pullhair Rubeye, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a normal album that they then recorded backward for some reason, and released it that way.

It’s albums like that that make me, teenage American white kid that I am, long for a non-sucking rock album just to put all those “weirdos” in their place. When The Fiery Furnaces put out Rehearsing My Choir, The Hold Steady was there to kick them straight in the nads. This year it’s The National’s new album Boxer, reminding me why Joan Jett wrote that song that everybody covered.

But it’s unfair to call Boxer ‘rock n’ roll’ and leave it at that. Rock music gets a deservedly bad rap (which is different from bad rap music, which also exists) because there are very few rock bands out there that are doing anything different. Even worse than that, bands that everyone thought (or at least hoped) died 20 years ago are making comeback albums and touring and getting Rolling Stone to fellate them, causing mainstream rock music to all sound exactly the same.

Lyrics are often a problem, with bands like Green Day suddenly attempting to sound intelligent and informed after a decade of founding their career in gleeful stupidity. Rock bands often sound dumb, boring, or bored.

So, let’s just turn this right around then and look at why we here at Swim Through Frequencies love Boxer. Well, for one thing, Matt Berninger’s lyrics are fantastic. His characters revel in melancholy, trying to walk the line between white-collar businesspeople, soldiers, and slackers without being able to find a happy medium. Some of the best lines sound like he gave up halfway through, reflecting the mood of the character. Lines like “Sometimes you get up and bake a cake or something, sometimes you just lay in bed” from “Racing Like a Pro” is balanced tragically with the chorus’ “One time you were a glowing young ruffian. Oh my God it was a million years ago.” Even these revelations sound like characters realizing them are lying on their couch, unable to escape.

It is almost impossible to avoid cliché when discussing “love” in music, as sad as that is. Berninger manages to do it, however, with a few stellar lyrics on the subject. In “Slow Show,” the narrator is stuck at a party (given the rest of the album, I assume a business party) when all he wants to do is go home to his girl. The narrator’s desire to “hurry home to you, put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up” coupled with the bridge, “You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I met you” is heart-wrenching as a plea for a lover to stay, an emotion that is rarely conveyed anymore in music.

To focus too much on Berninger, though he deserves every second of it, detracts from how truly excellent the rest of the band is. During their live sets, they switch instruments, harmonize, and seem to truly love what they do. On the album, the instruments and the vocals blend beautifully, setting an atmosphere that reflects and compliments the tone of Berninger’s lyrics.

To be completely blunt, Boxer is the best thing I’ve heard all year. Sonically, it creates a landscape that never falters without becoming tedious. Lyrically, Berninger is as literate as John Darnielle or Colin Meloy, but plays a whole different sport, one where he and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff are kings.

With that, The National’s Boxer becomes Swim Through Frequencies’ first Album Of The Month.