High Violet is The National at their most sonically ambitious, wrapping Matt Berninger's baritone murmur in orchestral arrangements that swell and recede like tides. The album was recorded with a full string and brass section, and the results are frequently stunning. "Terrible Love" opens with a wall of distorted guitar that gradually gives way to layers of strings, creating an almost cinematic sense of drama that carries through the entire record.
The Dessner brothers' guitar work is more textural than ever. Bryan Dessner builds intricate patterns of picked arpeggios and effects-laden atmospherics that create a sonic environment rather than driving songs forward in the traditional sense. Aaron Dessner's contributions add harmonic complexity without ever competing for space. The interplay between the guitars and the orchestral arrangements on "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is masterful — each element occupying its own frequency range, building to a chorus that feels physically expansive.
Berninger's lyrics are among his best. "Afraid of Everyone" captures the particular anxiety of adult responsibility with painful precision, while "England" transforms a simple story of touring exhaustion into a meditation on displacement and longing. His delivery has become increasingly restrained over the course of The National's discography, and on High Violet it occasionally crosses the line from understated to inert. There are moments, particularly in the album's middle section, where the combination of his near-monotone vocals and the slow tempos creates a uniformity that blunts the emotional impact.
The rhythm section of Bryan Devendorf and Scott Devendorf provides the album's most consistently engaging element. Bryan's drumming is endlessly inventive — the syncopated pattern on "Conversation 16" turns what could be a standard indie ballad into something far more rhythmically interesting. Scott's bass lines are melodic and warm, often carrying the harmonic weight of songs while the guitars float in the upper register.
High Violet is a beautiful record that occasionally struggles with pacing. But when it hits — and "Bloodbuzz Ohio," "Terrible Love," and "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" all hit very hard indeed — it demonstrates why The National are among the most consistently rewarding bands of their generation.
