I was just playing a bunch of records for cooking out with friends yesterday, and put on HV because even though i don’t love it as much as a lot of other people, it is the closest thing to an arena rock record they’ve ever made and it sounds good with extreme weather (storms, high heat, etc).
With the exception of Turtleneck and System, I don’t really see it as being anywhere near as BigTM in that way as HV. Terrible Love, Bloodbuzz, Little Faith, Afraid of Everyone, Conversation 16, England. It feels like a festival record. There’s a lot of swinging for the fences, whereas SWB feels like a record to put on at night and drive to.
SWB has a few moments that ended up sounding surprisingly huge and energetic live, like those succinct distorted guitar hits in Day I Die and System. It also added a handful of live staples that pretty effectively mellowed out their set (IMO) from that album on.
My wife hated the National until one day This is the Last Time was playing and she said “I kind of like his voice. What are other good National songs?” and now the National is her favorite band. It will get you, if you wait long enough.
Yeah when i was 19 i just kinda played High Violet in my car ambiently and thought it sounded nice but then a year later they were a favorite band of mine lol
Gave this another listen on a nighttime drive home in the rain and while overstuffed it’s still absolutely gorgeous
scrap the interludes and one of the boring songs toward the beginning (ymmv on which is the boringest) and this is as good a National record as any save boxer. The highs are so fucking high
I never listen to this album. Love everything else this band has done tho. Probably need to revisit this in full, it just never really clicked for me.
My fiance loves The National but just cannot abide this album I think it's patchy in the extreme - but if you removed 6 songs it would be one of their best
5-6 songs off this and it’s the best national record. I bet I’ve said this 5+ times in this thread lol