OH HO HO, WHAT WOULD OUR ADULT NIECES AND NEPHEWS THINK OF SUCH SHENANIGANS AS THESE!…
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[5.33]
Brad Shoup: I think the difference between the National and, say, the Walkmen is that the former’s songs rely on audience coloring. The jump to the chorus’s seesawing Es and As could have been a bigger leap; there’s not much distance from the verses’ aimless Gnarls Barkling, but I still hear the echos of anthem. Halfway through, Berninger’s cadence quickens, heading for that Lifter Puller holy foolishness, but they wad another, more silly singalong bit in the middle. (Defenestration’s more of an art, y’know?) Anyway, I can’t hear this without imagining thousands lowing along in October. Maybe they’ll make it better. Maybe I’ll pass out.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Thanks to the double stroke the pace registers on an EKG meter, and the emphasis on the title’s first syllable is a memorable refrain, but these guys still mumble into their shirts and I’m not sure how much I can take this.
[6]
Anthony Easton: If this is the future of rock and roll, I am going to go back to listen to Angie.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: Pretty straightforward for The National, this seems sort of just there, lacking any of the really clever lyrical or sonic turns defining their best songs.
[5]
Jer Fairall: “There’s a science to walking through windows without you,” Matt Berninger sighs in this track’s most promising moment, but elsewhere he’s unable to find any poetry in it beyond a series of clunky rhymes on the title. If the music is the typical pleasant wisp, with a dulcet keyboard ring and some busy-but-steady, percussion keeping time until the controlled burn of the conclusion, it is because “graceless” has never been a problem for the band. “Bloodless,” on the other hand…
[5]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Barring the fact the word is used throughout in Matt Berninger’s curling drawl of a voice, titling your perfectly sculptured mope “Graceless” is just cheeky. Who couldn’t find grace in something like this?
[8]
Edward Okulicz: Matt Berninger’s deliberately wearied singing often masks what feel like weirdly anthemic songs. I know its general enervation is itself enervating to some listeners, but particularly on “Graceless,” it feels purposeful and wedded to a particularly nice tune. The combination of a particularly morose Berninger vocal with skittering drums and a frisky bassline remind me of my favourite National song (“Brainy“), only with a bigger chorus and guitars that grind and soothe.
[9]
Zach Lyon: Certainly does nothing to disprove my theory that The National are a herd of moose stuck in a recording studio, unable to figure out doorknobs or the meanings of human words.
[2]
Jonathan Bogart: Ryan Gosling is running through the rain. Is he in time to keep the girl with the dirty blonde hair alive/from making a terrible mistake/in love with him? We’ll have to wait for the montage song to be over to find out.
[5]