Tracklist:

1. Fake Empire
2. Mistaken for Strangers
3. Brainy
4. Squalor Victoria
5. Green Gloves
6. Slow Show
7. Apartment Story
8. Start a War
9. Guest Room
10. Racing Like a Pro
11. Ada
12. Gospel

It’s pretty rare these days for any great musical effort to go rather unnoticed for any period of time. With various blogs covering albums from the day the first generous college station host sees it in the booth and sticks it into his D:/ drive and hits “import”, opinions are formed for you well before you even hear a single note. And then there was Alligator.

A band of visibly, as well as audibly, older men doing nothing experimental, The National are the antithesis of what seems to be so prescient these days, bands like Animal Collectives, the bands in masks or with long johns pulled over their heads with holes cut out for eyes and soccer socks over their arms. As such, most sites gave the album a poor rating or didn’t rate them at all. Then a few months later everyone was all over the album, singing its praises and putting it in their lists. Each and every song was not only beautiful on its take on relationships and just about everything there is to write songs about, but songs like “Abel”, “Mr. November” and “Secret Meeting” were absolute killers musically as well. Equally impressive in their restraint and general beauty were tracks like “City Middle” and “Karen”.

Then we get the highly anticipated Boxer, which despite being tremendously beautiful at points, such as the lyrics on “Ada”, rarely grabs you by the throat like the last album does a number of times. That is where this album disappoints somewhat. Digging into the National’s catalogue reveals that they can rip your heart out slowly as well as anyone else, tracks like “About Today” assess the monotony that love always eventually entails, whereas “Cherry Tree” says the same of treachery. On this album, those same topics are discussed 12 times over, but the band’s undeniable talent makes it impossible to think entirely negatively of this album.

From the top down, this band is pretty much flawless. At the top, Matt Berninger’s lyrics are emotionally matured and naked without being over the top, and they are as great as ever on “Brainy” and “Ada”. On the bottom of the musical spectrum Bryan Devendorf is a drumming dynamo who understands the value of off-kilter drumming better than anyone else in rock music today and his inimitable presence alone make “Brainy” and “Squalor Victoria” highlights. These factors make this album worth listening to, but anyone who has listened to more than just Alligator should know the 2005 album was a huge step forward for the band, and should demand that they stay there and not retreat into this half-hearted, albeit still beautiful mentality.

Matt Berninger seems to be aware of the demands on not only his band, but men in general, perennially expected to be the best option out there, whether financially, abdominally or otherwise, otherwise there is a replacement. That concern is expressed on the stellar “Start A War” in which he repeats time and again “you expected something better, you expected something more”. Surely, it is hard to expect anything better than Alligator from anyone, lest the same band twice, but it wouldn’t hurt for Berninger to turn up the volume and clarity every once in a while, a whispered mumble works every once in a while, but 12 times is pushing it. The band seemed to be aware of that fact when on tour, reimagining earlier songs with a vigor that improved them tremendously, see “Available” or “Slipping Husband” from the band’s 2nd album Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. On this album, everyone seems to be playing half asleep except for Devendorf on drums, the album is still tremendous, but only because these guys are better in their sleep than most are awake, but an alarm clock would have helped.

MP3:
Brainy
Green Gloves

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Record Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.