Kevin Bronson on May 8th, 2013

0

For days now I’ve been holed up with “Trouble Will Find Me,” the forthcoming sixth album from the National (out May 21 via 4AD). It’s the latest opus in what has become a 12-year hexalogy from the NYC-via-Cincinnati quintet of Matt Berninger, Scott and Bryan Devendorf and Bryce and Aaron Dessner. The literary allusions are intentional – “Trouble” feels like a leatherbound novel, richly textured and, owing to Berninger’s now-signature baritone, rapturously narrated. I could itemize, but what’s most amazing at this juncture in the National’s career is how the band repeats itself without repeating itself. In countering the dark with the light, frailty with strength, despair with hope, isolation with intimacy, the band tacitly acknowledges that the quest for some sort of emotional, moral center is an ongoing process. “I keep coming back here where everything slipped,” Berninger sings in “Slipped.” “I will not spill guts out.” Thankfully, he does.

||| Live: The National perform at the Greek Theatre on Aug. 10 and Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Aug. 11.