What makes you think I'm enjoyin' being lead to the flood?

Matt Berninger of The National, live at the House of Blues, Boston, May 23 2009. Photo by Ian Doreian, Melophobe.

Have I told you lately how much I love The National? They're kind of a little bit amazing, and one of those rare bands that sound like they have a driving need to create music.

To tide you over until their next album (late this year/early next year, hopefully), here is some post-Boxer material, culled from two shows they played in May. All of these songs have gone through various, sometimes extensive revisions, and may change further before the album is released, or they may not appear on the album at all, but they're all basically amazing, so, enjoy.

The National - England (Radio City Music Hall, NYC 03.05.09) (zShare)
The National - Vanderlylle Cry Baby (feat. Bon Iver) (Radio City Music Hall, NYC 03.05.09) (zShare)
The National - Blood Buzz Ohio (House of Blues, Boston 23.05.09) (zShare)
The National - The Runaway (House of Blues, Boston 23.05.09) (zShare)

Gotta say, the "I never married, but Ohio don't remember me" in Blood Buzz gets me every time. Definitely one to get stuck in your head. Of course the others ain't exactly shabby, with England being a perfect illustration of how, to quote Amrit at Stereogum who captured my feelings on it perfecly, "The National are at their best when they push to a climax they never fully punctuate, which is why "England" is the National at their best." Vanderlylle Cry Baby, from the same night, features here a shout-along chorus and an electrifying guitar solo from Mr. Justin 'Bon Iver' Vernon. The Runaway (formerly 'Karamazov', which is apparently a reference to this book which I now feel compelled to read) was probably the slowest-burner of the bunch for me, but after seeing the radio session footage of it below (which also features frequent National collaborator Thomas Bartlett aka Doveman, plus a two-piece horn section which I think was the same one present at the Boston show), I can't stop listening to it.



Pretty sure I could watch Matt sing like that all day.

The National official site
Buy Boxer: CD / Vinyl / iTunes

And in case you forgot how great The National were in the first place:

The National - Fake Empire (zShare) from Boxer

I'm not too comfortable

Jim Ward feat. Tegan Quin - Broken Songs (zShare)

A quiet song; not necessarily sonically, but possessing the intimacy of wide-open country roads and long days spent travelling upon them, acoustic guitar and a lone maraca providing backdrop to the yearnng, beautifully double-tracked vocals, weary-but-hopeful, aided by a rather wonderful turn from the Tegan half of Tegan & Sara. Lyrically a page out of the Springsteen songbook, but Ward delivers the lines with a rawness of his own that doesn't appear so unrestrained anywhere else on the EP.

"I'll build a home, from these broken songs".

[Buy]

Like seemingly half the music I listen to these days, Jim Ward's In the Valley, On the Shores EP was discovered through Tegan & Sara's Twitter (@theteganandsara). I'm not as familiar with Jim Ward as I probably should be, but I do know he played in seminal post-hardcore act At the Drive-in (who I've been meaning to check out but haven't) before co-founding Sparta and the more alt-country Sleepercar. Anyway, the rather excellent five-song EP from which this song is taken can and should be purchased for $7 in your choice of download or CD format (including worldwide shipping) from the link above. Initially the download was a pay-what-you-want deal, but I see that I took too long to write about it and now it's also $7. Still more than worth it, and the physical CD is a gorgeous package, plain blue and gold ink screen-printed on a cardboard sleeve and hand-numbered (at least mine was, not sure if any of those are still in stock). The other four songs are sadly lacking in Tegan, but they're still every bit as good as this one.