The National - The National (2001)

1) Beautiful Head; 2) Cold Girl Fever; 3) The Perfect Song; 4) American Mary; 5) Son; 6) Pay for Me; 7) Bitters & Absolut; 8) John’s Star; 9) Watching You Well; 10) Theory of the Crows; 11) 29 Years; 12) Anna Freud

Casually-played americana without any lofty ambitions or instrumental finesse. It's a modest start.

Key tracks: "Beautiful Head", "American Mary", "Son"

Forget Alligator, Boxer, et al. Forget the intricately crafted textures, the subtle instrumental wizardry, the layered arrangements and the gripping atmosphere that have become The National’s trademarks. Forget Matt Berninger’s half-awake half-drunk insights into human nature. All that’s still well into the future. The National’s debut is an album featuring group of friends who decided to form a band, wrote some music in their living rooms and recorded it with little in the way of greater ambitions before they had played a single show.

The self-titled first album lacks the dynamics, the songcraft and the instrumental signatures (Bryan Devendorff’s distinct drumming style, the Dessners’ interlocking guitar parts, Scott Devendorff wasn’t even officially on bass at this stage) that The National have come to be known for. Instead, you have mid-tempo rock songs with little variety on arrangements or composition. Matt Berninger’s instantly identifiable crooning is the main thing that ties the self-titled with its successors and you occasionally get a whiff of musical foreshadowing of what’s to come in the future, but in every other respect this is The National in embryo stage. They’re still trying to find a foothold in the world of music, searching for a sound of their own with only a hint of knowledge of their own talents; less indie superstars, more the band at the back of the bar. Even the hints of future directions lean towards wholly different areas, with an unexpected alt-country vein rearing its head across the album and giving the impression there was a chance the band could just as easily have headed into Nashville rather than New York nightlife. And at the same time, it’s only a hint that never dares to fully come into the forefront, almost like the band wasn’t even certain if that was something they should be doing.

Admittedly it’s a little underwhelming but if you avoid comparing this to the rest of the band’s catalogue it does show in a better light. The songs are a little one-note, but it’s a decent note and Berninger’s charisma carries it far better than it might have with some other singer. Each track carries at least one reasonably solid idea and especially the relatively up-tempo “Beautiful Head”, the lazy swagger of “Anna Freud” and the clearly intended stand-out torchlight song “American Mary” become familiar friends fairly soon. “Son” is the the only real glimpse of the band’s future you can hear here: it has all the elements of a classic National track and while they’ve not fully clicked into place yet, it’s the best song on the album. Even so, it says something when the standout song of the album is “29 Years” (which shares its lyrics with Boxer’s “Slow Show”): more an interlude than a full song, it breaks away from the rest of the album’s mid-tempo waddling by wrapping itself in lo-fi fuzz and taking an angle more atmospheric than musical. On any other album it might be little more than curio, but here it positively stands out as something different that stretches the borders beyond the established range - a promise of a more interesting future.

Even with its positive points this is nonetheless completely inessential to anyone but the biggest fans and even those might find it rather throwaway. With time it’s grown on me to an extent but it’s hard to say whether I’d have given it the opportunity to grow on me if it wasn’t for the band’s future efforts; and still, it’s not an album of hidden depths or slowburning glories. It’s an alright recording from a group who hadn’t yet discovered their voice, a set of early efforts that somehow ended up being recorded in a studio before the band was really ready for it. It makes for a comfortably decent album, but nowhere close to a real revelatory experience.

Rating: 6/10