The Daily Spin, May 1
The National | First Two Pages of Frankenstein
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023. FIFTH MONTH!
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: First Two Pages of Frankenstein (2023)
Artist: The National
Link:
This is just so good.
It’s gentle, but never soft to the point of feeling neutered - rather, it’s still holding that emotional weight that makes The National so devastatingly talented at their best - and with the bolstered weight that heavy hitters like Sufjan Stevens, Taylor Swift, and Phoebe Bridgers (twice!!) carry, it’s no wonder that this is like catnip for a sadboi like myself.
It’s funny, then, that my favorite song off the record has no feature to it, but it’s those “solo” ventures that have a more accurate air to them, I think - though each feature is undeniably talented, there’s a cessation there to make the two styles mold together, and in that, something gets lost, for better or for worse - but on ‘New Order T-Shirt’, that all falls away, to be the best of this band that is nine albums deep into their career.
It’s melancholy, often brutally so, never pulling punches in the sense that you know this is emotionally hefty going in and coming out all the same, the sort of album that settles in your chest, straddling you and forcing confrontation with some of those parts of yourself that you may not quite like so much - but it’s cathartic, too, honest and open and wildly freeing.
Rating: 8.8/10
Best Tracks: New Order T-Shirt; Once Upon A Poolside; Your Mind Is Not Your Friend
Worst Tracks: Send For Me