Hey Sound Opinions listeners, if you support us on Patreon, you get to listen to our podcast

ad-free on Patreon.

And I'm Greg Cutt. We'll also talk about her origins as a punk rock journalist, but first, a review of you music from the national.

I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg Cutt, I'm Greg

That is a little bit of the Alcott, a track from the new album by the national. First two pages of Frankenstein, I do love that title. And Greg, I'd be remiss, the Swifties would be on me in a second if I didn't note that the Alcott is a track featuring Taylor Swift. Yes, Taylor Swift lending her talents along with Phoebe Bridgers and Sufion Stevens to the national on album number nine.

This group came together in 1999, first put themselves really on the map in the early 2000s as part of that Brooklyn scene included the strokes and the Walkman and the yeah, yeah, yeah, and they have been giving us very interesting collections of old country, chamber, pop, Americana, Heartland, Rock, singer, songwriter, sophistication ever since.

Lead singer, lead vocalist Matt Berenger, two sets of brothers, key to this band, The Desners and The Devendorfs. Like all of us, they were waylaid by the pandemic. And you know, they've been fighting throughout their whole career. So they have conflicts here and there. A lot of a lot of pressure for solo projects.

Aaron Desner produced two albums by Taylor Swift and I've been working with Boni Vare in a side project called Big Red Machine. One of the other brothers has been doing soundtrack music, got a solo album in between from Matt Berenger, then they came back together in upstate New York.

At one of the brothers recording studios to give us this new album that I mentioned. I love that title. First two pages of Frankenstein is the name of the album. We're going to play a track here. It's called Eucalyptus. We'll come back and give our reviews in a second. This is the national.

That's the national with Eucalyptus. First two pages of Frankenstein is the name of the album. Apparently, he read the first two pages of Mary Shelley's Not.

Mary Shelley's novel for inspiration because he was a massive period of writer's block combined with depression and Matt Berenger. We wouldn't expect anything less from Matt Berenger. He has the reputation as the literate sad dad of Indy Rock and you know, why not continue it? This band is always breaking up. They're always writing about breakups. They're in the band of, you know, it is constantly a theme throughout the internal struggles of the band. Are they together? Are they not? Will they make another album?

I have to say, the 2019 album they made, the previous one, I am easy to find indicated that things were not going well. There were a lot of guest stars on that record. There's a few guest stars in this album, you know. Probably the biggest guest star in the world, Taylor Swift. And Phoebe Bridges, who is also pretty major. I have to say, I remember pitching this band to Rolling Stone. I was writing reviews for them and I said, you got to write about this band. They had not heard of the national. This is back in 2003.

Their album, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. And I loved the band for a good long stretch of time. I thought they, the thing that I loved about Berenger was the, you know, there was sort of this understatement there, but you could tell just just beneath the surface, things were not going well and eventually is going to erupt.

Well, and that would happen. This is fine line and confusion. Are we talking about the breakup of the band or best friends? Are we talking about romantic relations? Absolutely.

It was unclear, but at the same time, it was very visceral. And the other thing that I loved about the band in addition to Berenger's ability to just sort of like snap was the drumming, a Brian Adendorb. I think he is one of the great drummers of the last 20 years extremely underrated.

Did you hear what he was doing on Eucalyptus? That track we played. I just love that.

Just another voice in the band almost like it's another vocal, you know, it was answering Berenger's lead vocal.

I was going to talk about that, but it's so refreshing to hear you praise a drummer. Over the years, he's just been great. I don't think there's enough of him on this record.

I also think I'm missing those eruptive moments. That said, I feel like they've regained a little bit of their mojo. There are some really great songs on this record.

Again, very understated. A lot of songs about relationships. He's almost cataloging relationships. You're going to take the Afghan Wigs record onto the cowboy.

Right, right, right. There's a lot of songs with these kind of listy things about how do we divvy up our world?

What about the rainbow you've elliptus? What about the instruments? What about the cowboy junkies? What about the Afghan Wigs?

...