The National have a surprise-released a new album, “Laugh Track”. It’s the band’s second album of 2023, following the April release of “First Two Pages of Frankenstein”, and is out now digitally via 4AD Records. The album features guest appearances from Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver, and Rosanne Cash. the band shared an animated video for the album’s “Deep End (Paul’s in Pieces).”
But despite all that, the album’s near-eight-minute long closing track, “Smoke Detector,” was the song we liked the best, as it finds the band rocking out more than they have on recent releases. The song was recorded in June during a soundcheck in Vancouver and those circumstances aid the song’s welcome looseness.
“Laugh Track” includes two songs the band shared in August, “Alphabet City” and “Space Invader.” was one of our Songs of the Week. It also features the band’s 2022 single, “Weird Goodbyes,” which was a collaboration with Bon Iver (the project led by Justin Vernon), but was surprisingly not featured “First Two Pages of Frankenstein”.
“It felt like the story had already been told. It was its own thing,” says the band’s Aaron Dessner of “Weird Goodbyes” and why it was held for the new album. “But it also felt related to what we were doing. That was part of the logic for making another record—let’s give ‘Weird Goodbyes’ its own home.”
“Laugh Track” originates from the “First Two Pages of Frankenstein” sessions and is regarded as a companion album (even the album covers are almost identical). The band recorded at producer Tucker Martine’s Portland studio, Flora Recording & Playback.
The band features frontman Matt Berninger, as well as two sets of brothers: Aaron Dessner (guitar/piano/bass) and Bryce Dessner (piano, guitar), and Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).
Aaron Dessner says The National has often resisted making a full-on rock record, but leaned more into that notion this time, with the drums having a more prominenet role. “It’s not because we don’t enjoy sitting in a room banging around ideas. It’s just that it wasn’t that productive, so we developed a fairly elaborate way of building songs in which [drummer] Bryan Devendorf had a very important but compartmentalized role,” he says. “This time we had the desire to make something that was more alive so that Bryan’s playing would drive more.”
Matt Berninger says of their approach to making “Laugh Track” “Let’s just turn everything off and walk away. Bail out of your head, of all the things you’re worried about, your career, your whole identity, how strong you thought you were.”
“Laugh Track” is the band’s most freewheeling, all-hands-on-deck album in years. If Frankenstein represented a rebuilding of trust between group members after 20+ years together, the vibrant, exploratory “Laugh Track” is both the product of that faith and a new statement of intent. Reveling in the license to radically upend its creative process, The National honed most of this material in live performances on tour, and captured those invigorated versions in impromptu sessions at producer Tucker Martine’s Portland studio.
Released 17/11/2023
The Fat Angel Sings 