Get Sunk

Soon after The National singer Matt Berninger released his solo debut, <i>Serpentine Prison</i>, in the fall of 2020, its name seemed to backfire. After two decades as one of indie rock’s most magnetic lyricists and vocalists, he was trapped inside writer’s block, stuck in a cycle where anything that resembled work or even input induced despair. That trap slowly broke as he and his band began work on 2023’s <i>First Two Pages of Frankenstein</i> and its surprise follow-up, <i>Laugh Track</i>; their rebuilt rapport slowly revived his lexicon. That same year, Berninger and his family left Los Angeles after a decade, with their country escape to Connecticut recalling scenes of his Ohio childhood. He settled into new rhythms and modes, writing lyrics between the seams of baseballs. <i>Get Sunk</i>—a reference to that earlier depressive period and, implicitly, springing out of it—steadily took shape. To make <i>Get Sunk</i>, Berninger and long-time engineering partner and producer Sean O’Brien bounced around a Los Angeles studio, building beats and sequences for six hours at a time until Berninger finally found the words that fit. They recruited a sterling support cast, including Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy, session ace Booker T. Jones and Ronboy leader Julia Laws. They called their dozen or so helpers the “Saturday Musicians”. Berninger’s voice has always been The National’s calling card, the athletic baritone at its centre. Wouldn’t a solo album, especially a second, just feel redundant or reductive, an imitation of its more famous setting? But <i>Get Sunk</i> is marked by an unexpected versatility. Where he cannily mumbles his way through the textural maze of “Nowhere Special”, he becomes ultimately approachable on “Junk”, a gorgeous and gothic love song that suggests Nick Cave. Where “Frozen Oranges” is a Middle American fever dream about searching for contentment, “No Love” documents the end of personal chemistry, of a relationship that once held meaning now corroding into, at best, niceties. The linchpin, though, is closer “Times of Difficulty”, where that whole big band gathers together to offer an anthem for interdependence, to reaching out for a lift when you get sunk. “Feels like we missed another summer/If we’re not dying, then what are we?” he moans. Getting on, best we can.