The National - Boxer

Before I get to talking about Boxer, allow me a paragraph to pay tribute to the various and sundry online music publications to which I am eternally indebted for all the great music that has become my life over the course of the last six years. Who would Shaun Minus be without the tireless efforts of such shining stalwarts as Pitchfork, Stylus Magazine, Tiny Mix Tapes, Coke Machine Glow, and the catch-all tally site Metacritic? In our present digital age of information overload, it can become difficult to determine which bands, albums and songs deserve more time, attention and consideration based on the potential rewards of repeated listening. Sometimes it's beneficial to turn to those whose opinions you've come to trust implicitly to determine when to give an album a few more go's. Some of my all-time favorite albums have been discovered in this fashion (I'm looking at you, Kid A). That being said...

There's been an enormous critical buzz about this album since its release that, I must confess, I initially found perplexing. I missed out on Alligator, the National's 2005 release, so perhaps I hadn't been properly conditioned for this band's particular brand of low-key lounge-infused indie rock. My initial response was thunderous indifference due to what my unprepared ears heard as little more than loud post-Interpol drumming and Matt Berninger's Leonard Cohen-aping drawl, with the rest of the instrumentation, and indeed, the melodies themselves taking a back-of-the-bus position in the mix. Were it not for my faith in the tastes of the online critical community at large, I mayn't have given Boxer a second listen. And that would have been my loss (and perhaps a loss for those who depend on me for musical awareness as well).

The National have shed their old alt-country skins and dropped the last vestiges of garage-inspired noise in exchange for a sleeker, more streamlined sound. If you need a simile, the version of the band on Boxer sounds a bit like Morphine's Mark Sandman fronting post-Joy Division also-rans the Stills. Wait, don't stop reading! I mean that in the best way possible! This isn't rock the indie party music, nor is it a headphone head-trip bedroom mind-blower. Boxer disarms with its subtlety before sideswiping with a hidden emotional and structural punch. Adjust yourself to the subdued nature of the music and melodies and you'll find an embarrassment of riches.

Unlocking Boxer's treasures requires a bit of context. This is music for the big comedown, that point in a young adult's life where the party stops making sense while everything else remains equally nonsensical. It's equal parts melancholy and contemplative without submitting to emo posturing. The music conjures a lonely late night drive back to the suburbs after a wasted evening in the city. The more rock-oriented tracks are driven by Bryan Devendorf's muscular post-new wave drumming, anchored appropriately at the front of the mix and backed by unobtrusive guitar, bass and keyboards, calling to mind the hypnotic flash of passing highway lights.

Boxer begins with the deceptively up-beat "Fake Empire", floating in on a major chord piano figure as Berninger attempts to cling to the empty joys of the good life at the end of the night, intoning "turn the light out, say goodnight/ no thinking for a little while/ let's not try to figure out everything it wants". "Mistaken For Strangers" succeeds (where Interpol fails) at the angry realization of what friendship in the "scene" really means: "when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights/ arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under". That sense of disappointment continues unabated while considering unrequited love ("Brainy") and the lives of office professionals ("Squalor Victoria"), the lyrics infused with just enough poetic license to refrain from the pedestrian, and yet straight enough to carry a fairly direct message.

Berninger understands the fundamental conflict between not wanting what we have and not having what we want, the 21st Century Twenty-something's defining existential struggle. He calls out to the love he has but is kept from in "Slow Show", illustrating his devotion with the lyric "You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I met you". Later, he bristles from too much contact with that same love when he warns "Walk away now/ and you're gonna start a war" ("Start a War"). Carried by a back beat straight out of Broken Social Scene's "KC Accidental", "Apartment Story" paints a picture of a couple imprisoned by laziness and addiction to media saturation. "We'll stay inside til somebody finds us/ do whatever the tv tells us/ stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz for days". Like a drug, tv and radio numbs Berninger's real world concerns, makes him forget himself.

This same idea finds new expression in album highlights "Guest Room" and "Racing Like a Pro". In the former, the apartment-locked lovers have split yet still refuse to leave. The latter features Boxer's most pronounced vocal melody as he laments the passing of youth's passion: "one time you were a glowing young ruffian/ oh my god it was a million years ago/ you're dumbstruck baby". At once, a devastating revelation and a vicious indictment of the person who once earned his complete devotion which has become lost through time and familiarity. "Ada" finds Berninger pleading to his lost love to resurrect the person he once knew, opening the discussion with "don't talk about the reasons why you don't want to talk about the reasons why you don't want to talk/ now that you've got everybody you consider sharp all alone, all together, all together in the dark" and ends with just a little bit of optimism for the future: "I've been hoping you know your way around".

Suffice to say, this is dark dark stuff. Not in the Goth cliche faux-romantic persuasion. It's darkness entirely of its own stripe. The National have scored a triumph with Boxer by finding a new, completely accessible language by which to translate the pain of leaving youth behind. If you've yet to drop the teen from your age, or if you've left the unanswered questions of your twenties far behind, this album may not speak as loudly to you. For the rest of us, we may be able to agree that Boxer is the sound of what we're all feeling to some degree, and that strength in numbers may just provide a bit of comfort amidst all that darkness.

Panda Bear - Person Pitch

I was never a freak-folk subscriber. To me, the meshing of hipster and hippie sensibilities was a hard sell. While I respect the Devandra Barnharts and the Joanna Newsoms, etc., I can't actually bring myself to listen to any of them on a regular basis. Animal Collective was, for whatever reason, lumped into that category when they began to acquire some acclaim and I must admit that their freak-folk associations, whether they be accurate or not, soured my ability to truly understand and appreciate what they try to accomplish. Viewing Avery Tare and Panda Bear through the freak-folk lens crippled my ability to focus on their strengths. As it turns out, Panda Bear's second solo album has provided just the right prescription to understand Animal Collective's vision.

Person Pitch is a pop album. And yet how can that be? In interviews, Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) has said that Person Pitch is 90% samples, most of which have been deconstructed to the point of being broad brush strokes of sound. So many of the sounds here crash into one another, ripped straight from the My Bloody Valentine playbook. Actual instrumentation, as well as vocals, is awash in reverb and the rhythms seem to float and bob around the melodies as if set adrift. Lyrical refrains repeat endlessly like they were intended for house tracks but have since defected here. Hell, 2 of Person Pitch's 7 tracks push past the 12 minute mark. So what could possibly qualify all this chaos as pop?

A precursory listen would provide no answer to that question. But this isn't pop of the bubblegum variety. Repeated close listens reveal a classic pop album in the vein of the Beach Boys or Simon & Garfunkel. Critics keep coming back to the Brian Wilson comparison because it is perfectly apt. Lennox telegraphs his vocal performances through a fog from another dimension, and yet despite all that reverb, all the carefully orchestrated layers of noise, his sweet, upbeat melodies come shining through as pure Pet Sounds.

"Comfy in Nautica" provides the perfect entry point for Person Pitch. Every idea expressed through the rest of the album is presented here in condensed form, boiled down to its essence. The music consists entirely of one sampled crowd chant repeated for almost 4 minutes while Lennox admonishes the listener "Try to remember always just to have a good time". "Take Pills" channels the Byrds for the first two and a half minutes before transforming into a faux calypso that would do Harry Belafonte proud. The lyrics portray an almost child-like naivety: "i don't want for us to take pills because we're stronger and we don't need them" which may contain some irony but is, nevertheless, a far more effective anti-drug message than the government could ever manage, just on the strength of the melody that carries it.

"I'm Not" is reggae for lamenting ghosts, while the 3-songs-in-one epic "Good Girl/Carrots" most fully displays Person Pitch's electronic roots. Lennox's Elvis Costello side comes out in the lyric "its not a ticket for you to pick at other people who don't know whats up like you're so sure you do". "Search for Delicious" is pure dub-Eno cleansing the noise palette for the lullaby finale "Pony Tail" which closes the whole affair with Zen-like affirmations, leaving the listener in a glowing state of peace and tranquility.

And let us not forget "Bros", the album's centerpiece. Twelve and a half glorious minutes of conflict re-imagined as drug-addled campfire gospel. Mark my words, you will not hear melodies more beautiful nor more haunting this year. Without resorting to histrionics, Lennox makes us feel his yearning for interpersonal resolution through the line "I know I'm being way too hard but I know that I'm trying". Somewhere, James Mercer is crying himself to sleep and Brian Wilson is preparing his torch for passing.

It's not at all a stretch to presume that Person Pitch will be universally renowned as one of the 2007's very best albums. It rewards repeated listens exponentially with an undiminished capacity to make the listener feel warm, safe and fuzzy while still wearing its avant garde tendencies right there on its furry sleeve. What's more, if you, like me, have misunderstood Panda Bear's full time band Animal Collective, Person Pitch might just be your gateway to figuring out what all the fuss is about. Forget freak-folk.