The National performing at Leeds’ First Direct Arena (Gary Mather)
The National played Leeds on September 23rd.
The National’s European tour has unexpectedly coincided with the release of a new album after the band swiftly put out Laugh Track, their second studio album of 2023, last week.
Despite being recorded during the same sessions, the album has taken a different direction when compared to its predecessor First Two Pages Of Frankenstein; ‘the sound of Matt Berninger’s personal rain turning into a downpour’, according to Live4ever’s review:
If there the physical artefacts of everything that’s gone faultlessly to shit are unwanted by either parties like they were a war’s empty shell casings, on the other hand New Order T-shirt’s stream of consciousness prose is made up of the sort of highly curated good memories we reward ourselves with after the grief begins to ebb away.
“As with its predecessor, First Two Pages Of Frankenstein shares some of the public burden with collaborators who are no strangers to the territory, but the results are mixed.”
“The tone setting austerity of opener Once Upon A Poolside features Sufjan Stevens – although whatever the contribution, it’s buried somewhere in the ether.”
