Indie rock band The National recently surprise-dropped their tenth studio album “Laugh Track” as a follow-up to “First Two Pages of Frankenstein,” which they released earlier this year. If you are unfamiliar with the band, The National is made up of frontman Matt Berninger, brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner and brothers Scott and Bryan Devendorf, all friends from Cincinnati, Ohio, who came together to form The National more than 20 years ago in Brooklyn, N.Y.
You may know of Aaron Dessner from his recent collaborations with big name artists like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, producing albums like Swift’s “folklore” and “evermore” and Sheeran’s “- (Subtract)” and recently released “Autumn Variations.” The National as a whole featured on Swift’s “evermore” on the song “Coney Island.”
“Frankenstein” and “Laugh Track” are the National’s first projects in the aftermath of these collaborations that brought new attention, including mine, to the band. Aaron credits working with these artists — particularly Swift — with teaching them “just to keep moving and to have confidence and maybe to not think so hard, to just be productive without criticism, and put out more music.”
The songs found on these projects were written together, then split into the two albums and recorded separately. Berninger has been open about his struggles with depression and writer’s block, themes that he explores in his lyrics across both “Frankenstein” and “Laugh Track.” “Frankenstein,” which features artists Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens, is melancholic and introspective. “Laugh Track,” featuring Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver and Rosanne Cash, is more upbeat and alive, while keeping a fairly consistent overall sound with its sister record. This dichotomy is reflected in the album covers of the two records. They feature the same art of a young boy, but the cover of “Laugh Track” replaces the muted tones of “Frankenstein’s” cover with more vibrant and full coloration. “Laugh Track” also replaces the blank background of “Frankenstein” — representing its more introspective point of view, with the world around the boy.
Some of the best moments on “Laugh Track” are the three features, as Berninger’s deep vocals blend incredibly well with those of their collaborators on the record. “Weird Goodbyes,” one of three songs that were released prior to the album as singles, features Aaron’s Big Red Machine collaborator Bon Iver. The song explores the feeling of trying to hold onto memories and things you have lost. The chorus reflects on the moment these memories come rushing back, and the realization that there was no proper end. “It finally hits me, a mile’s drive / ... / The grief, it gets me, the weird goodbyes.” Phoebe Bridgers also lends her ethereal vocals to the titular “Laugh Track,” a song about vulnerability and doubt in a relationship, and Rosanne Cash joins Berninger on the country-sounding “Crumble.”
“Space Invader” is a slow reflection about regrets and overthinking, these thoughts coming into one’s head “like a space invader.” The chorus is a series of what-if questions about things the singer could have done differently, and the outro sees them at “quarter after four in the morning” repeatedly asking “Why’d I leave it like that?” The album ends with the nearly eight-minute-long “Smoke Detector,” in which Berninger spirals out with repeated verses and increasingly desperate vocals, which you can hear most clearly in his delivery of the line “at least I’m not on the roof anymore” on the second run through of the verses. When talking about the song, Berninger said “It felt like the epitaph, burn it all down at the end.”
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