Album Review: The National - First Two Pages of Frankenstein
Matt Berninger of The National will play in Ireland as part of the tour for First Two Pages of Frankenstein. (Photo credit should read SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)
- The National
- First Two Pages of Frankenstein
- ★★★★☆
It comes as a surprise to hear that The National almost fell apart while making their eighth studio album. If any group of musicians could be considered to have had a “good” pandemic, it is these titans of alternative rock. In 2020, frontman Matt Berninger released a thoughtful and heartfelt solo record, Serpentine Prison. Meanwhile, guitarist twins Aaron and Bryce Dessner were working with Taylor Swift on her Folklore and Evermore LPs (Aaron was producer – Bryce co-authored with Swift the ballad 'Coney Island').
In the background, however, all was turning to dust. Berninger openly questioned his ability to go on writing songs about everyday angst. He got there eventually. Yet it took the support of his bandmates, who took him aside, looked him in the eyes and assured the singer that he still had something to contribute.
A catalyst for the reinvention that would lead to First Two Pages of Frankenstein was a 2022 tour that included a gig at Live at the Marquee in Cork. Here, the quintet honed embryonic material such as Tropic Morning News – Berninger’s rumination on the urge to “doom scroll” our phones (with lyrics by his wife and collaborator Carin Besser).
With their lead singer wading through a grey haze of writer’s block, First Two Pages has an often detached and abstruse quality. There are two kinds of National albums. The forward-footed ones full of vim and vigour (Alligator, Boxer). And the meditative collections towards which they have tended later in their career – such as I Am Easy To Find and Trouble Will Find Me.
With their latest, they go even deeper down that melancholy whirlpool. There are guitar hooks, choruses and melodies – but not always where you expect. That down-shifted to an agreeable murkiness will have already been clear from early singles such as 'Eucalyptus' and 'New Order T-Shirt', tracks that could easily be mistaken for meandering and inconsequential. Only as you spend time with them, are they revealed to be something other than woe-on-a-stick. These are tunes that simmer and come slowly to the boil – showing themselves to you in their own good time.
There are some high-profile cameos. Phoebe Bridgers duets with Berninger on 'Your Mind Is Not Your Friend' and Taylor Swift pops up on 'The Alcott', a mannered torch song that could have come straight from Evermore.
Sooner or later every major band arrives at a point of wondering if they have anything more to say. The results are not always worth the effort. U2 stumbled with the dreary No Line On The Horizon; REM sputtered on Around The Sun.
First Two Pages of Frankenstein could have been similarly underwhelming – a bloodless exercise in box-ticking by musicians who have lost sight of why they started the group in the first place. That it is something else – a deeper, darker plunge into Berlinger’s insecurities – is a testament to The National’s solidarity and their determination to never, ever phone it in.
