BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Local crust punk Zachary Kaiser was seen asking patrons on the patio of Inkwell Cafe if they were planning on eating their discarded cigarette butts, disgusted sources confirmed.
“First of all, I don’t smoke, and the ashtray wasn’t even near me, so I have no idea why this kid was asking me, but good god. Someone please get this kid to a hospital to get some bloodwork done,” sighed dismayed customer Jonathan Gregory. “I mean, I’m no prude. I’ve heard of people eating cigarettes in circus acts and stuff like that, but I still can’t believe this happened to me. It doesn’t even feel real. Just the thought of him asking makes me taste ash. I can’t even finish my scone, and I paid like fifteen bucks for it. Seriously, fuck that guy.”
When questioned, Kaiser didn’t seem to understand why his request was met with such disdain.
“I really don’t see the issue, I was trying to be polite. Most people eat American Spirits here, and those are like twelve dollars a pack now. I just wanted to make sure they didn’t go to waste. People throw out so much food now. It’s a huge sustainability problem,” explained a confused Kaiser. “Plus they’re fucking delicious. If someone came up to me and took my halfies without asking, I’d be pretty fucking pissed. He could have just said no instead of vomiting and making a huge mess everywhere. As punk as it was, it was pretty rude.”
Nutritionist Deborah Lowrey was not surprised to hear of the incident, citing a crumbling nutritional education system.
“Cigarettes, while appetizing, are mostly just empty calories. This is without mentioning the harmful additives manufacturers add to enhance the flavor,” noted Lowrey. “Still, it’s important not to judge. Kids these days just aren’t getting the information they should be regarding a healthy diet and advertisers certainly aren’t going to take any responsibility if it might affect their bottom line. It’s systemic, really. At least he’s not drinking vape cartridges, which is an entirely different problem.”
At press time, Kaiser was seen cutting the filters off a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes, citing a dislike for the bleachy aftertaste.
First things first, is “I Am Easy to Find” even really a National album? Sure, all the standard mope-rock elements are there and the usual suspects are performing, but the band’s eighth album seems less like an enthusiastic effort and more like an attempt to address criticism. After years of The National being accused of being too bro-focused, they recruited Sharon Van Etten, and a slew of other female singers to basically drown out their usual vocalist, and finally gave Matt Berninger’s wife Carin Besser some lyric credits. Not to mention the whole album seemed more like a reason to get filmmaker Mike Mills (no, not the R.E.M. guy) to make a conceptual film about Alicia Vikander playing a woman in every stage of her life. We get it guys, you have a feminine side too.
The National’s self-titled album is essentially everything that would someday make the band world-conquering depressives, but with training wheels on. For some reason, “The National” often gets tagged as being somehow adjacent to the alternative country wave that included Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo, which just goes to show the lengths people will go to when they listen to Ryan Adams too much. But the album is really simply a collection of embryonically interesting tracks without the lush production the Dessner brothers would soon develop. Just listen to “29 Years” and compare it to the magnificent future track “Slow Show,” and you’ll see how the seeds sprouted.
For the second album, The National brought Bryce Dessner aboard as a full-time member, solidifying the line-up of two sets of brothers plus Matt Berninger (which must feel kind of weird for the singer). Just as importantly, producer Peter Katis began working with the band, smoothing out the clunkier edges of the debut and injecting a sonic depth that was sorely needed. Although Berninger still occasionally breaks out into screams on “Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers,” it’s also their sleepiest, most meandering album, which is why it’s hanging out here at #7.
By 2017, The National had pretty much established themselves as one of the premier rock bands of their generation and a go-to for every middle-aged dad with two bourbons and a regret chaser in his belly. So where to go from there? “Sleep Well Beast” answers that by basically adding some electronic frills to the established formula of distorted guitars, piano, and Bryan Devendorf’s underrated, deceptively complex drums. As a victory lap, it’s a decent album, though it doesn’t quite reach the heights the band once did. Still, listen to the Leonard Cohen homage “Dark Side of the Gym” and tell us melancholy isn’t delicious.
We’re as surprised as anyone that the National’s most recent album is their strongest in years, especially after the confused “I Am Easy to Find,” Matt Berninger’s solo album, and the Dessner brothers having been cursed by an angry witch to collaborate with Taylor Swift until they repent. But “First Two Pages of Frankenstein” has some of the band’s most moving and delicate melodies (particularly the opening “Once Upon A Poolside”) and a focus the band has been missing for some time. Sure, it might be the single worst title an album has ever had, but this is an unquestionable return to form.
The Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant once defined a band’s “imperial phase” as the moment when a group’s artistic and commercial zeniths occur simultaneously; basically, it’s when a bunch of musicians working together can’t seem to do wrong. “Trouble Will Find Me” is the tail end of the National’s own imperial phase, a powerful, expertly painful set of tracks that feature some of Matt Berninger’s most playful turns of phrase (“Pink Rabbits), the band’s most Romantically dreamy music (“Hard to Find,”) and depths of feeling )“I Need My Girl.”) Any band would be lucky for this to be their best album, and it’s only at #4 for the National.
The creative leap forward that the National made with the third album is simply astounding, by any measure. After two fitfully interesting, mostly fine albums, the band abruptly released “Alligator,” which announces its resplendent weirdness immediately with the queasy guitar lines and chant-like backing vocals of “Secret Meeting.” From there, it’s the gloriously impressionistic, horny poetry of “Karen” to the winsomeness of “Daughters of Soho Riots” to the fractured anthem rock of “All the Wine” and “Mr. November.” Things just snapped into place for The National with this one, and no one could call them country rock ever again.
The buzzing, atmospheric guitar tone of “Terrible Love” that opens “High Violet” is somehow bold, elegiac, and hopeful, all at once. In fact, that could probably describe the National as a band, which makes their 2010 album quite nearly their artistic apex. “High Violet” reveals the National as operating from a place of complete confidence, even if Matt Berninger’s lyrics, as ever, dwell on self-doubt and despair. However, he also reaches some of his greatest moments of transcendent, profound absurdity with lines like “I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees” (“Bloodbuzz Ohio”) or “Go out at night/ With your headphones on again/ And walk through/ The Manhattan valleys of the dead” (“Anyone’s Ghost). Plus, if you think the band doesn’t have a sense of humor, just listen to that line about eating brains again.
“Boxer” is simply a perfect album, the true sign of a band that has worked out all the kinks and knows exactly what sound fits them. The yearning, fantastically bucolic “Fake Empire” ascends into a clamor of horns; “Mistaken for Strangers” intensifies the alienated frustration that permeates every song they had previously written; “Slow Show” basically codifies the band’s definitive statement: “Can I get a minute of not being nervous/ And not thinking of my dick?” “Boxer” is the band’s greatest moment of cultural relevance, basically soundtracking the cultural paranoia of the mid-00s, while also being the perfect primer for anyone who wants to listen to five white guys make some super-sad music.
I can’t stand when bands churn out the same album repeatedly, but I also hate when bands change their sound in any way. I dislike Old Crows/Young Cardinals for both reasons. OC/YC finds Alexisonfire retreading similar ground explored on “Crisis” but with more of an alt-rock influence than ever before. It’s not a favorite of mine. I’m not a lyrics guy so maybe this album’s words are amazing and they mean a lot to you, but Zeus gave me a brain that doesn’t understand lyrics after even 200 listens so… sorry. This could be a concept album about comparing various Cheez-It flavors and it wouldn’t affect my enjoyment in the slightest. (White Cheddar is the best.)
This EP finds Alexisonfire rediscovering some youthful recklessness after the relatively restrained and mature “Old Crows/Young Cardinals.” You’ll find 4 pretty solid songs here with a lot of long guitar solos and instrumental passages. Possibly too many. Also, this EP may have had a hand in popularizing that colorful, cartoon-y art style that dominated post-hardcore and metalcore for the next half-decade. Minus five points.
My main gripe with “Otherness” is tempo. Most of the songs here are mid-tempo rockers. That’s fine sometimes, but I listen to Alexisonfire for energy and thrills. I understand that bands mature, get older, and chill out. But if anyone could buck the trend, I’d hope it would be AOF. We already have City and Colour for when we need to put on reasonable music in a carpool. If you’re going to listen to “Otherness,” pull it up on YouTube and listen at 1.25x speed. Bands love it when you do this to their music.
Choosing the top 3 here is very difficult. When I first volunteered to rank Alexisonfire’s catalog, I planned on ranking “Watch Out!” at the top spot. And while it’s still my personal favorite on most days, I have to admit upon relisten that it isn’t the strongest album in their repertoire. It starts off magnificently with “Accidents” but the middle third lags behind the rest in the songwriting department. The stretch from “Hey It’s Your Funeral Mama” to “White Devil” just isn’t quite as memorable as the rest. I’m happy to report that the band sticks the landing with an amazing one-two punch to close out the whole shebang. The cymbal that starts off “Get Fighted” makes me want to walk down my street smashing side windows off parked cars. In a good way.
This album is great. Phenomenal, even. Almost… too perfect. Is that a valid criticism? That it’s too good? It’s almost so clinically exact in its execution of Alexisonfire’s sound that I don’t reach for it as much as their “amateurish” debut. Whatever, you should have known by this point in the article that I have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about. Damnit, if I weren’t severely hungover and depressed that I finished my rewatch of “Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place” last night, I’d change the ordering and bring “Watch Out!’ into second place. But nah. It stays here.
This is one of those debut albums that seems to get mentioned by its creators with a sense of embarrassment. I couldn’t tell you why. It has everything I want in music: chunky rhythm guitars, memorable melodies, creative lead guitar parts, a great balance of screaming and singing, youthful abandon, and a production style that actually sounds like a bunch of people playing music together. It also came out in a time in my life when I still had hope, which is nice to remember. Anyways, this is a Canadian classic and a grand opening statement from the only band ever.