#221: High Violet

Ranking The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far (2025)

The National, 2010

The National’s High Violet is a stupendous album. I am not sure what I was doing in 2010 that I didn’t listen to this album on repeat, but I am trying to make up for it now. It’s one of those albums where each song could potentially be your favourite, and you can never say definitively which one you like best. Bookended by Matt Berninger’s incredible baritone and Bryan Devendorf’s wizard-like percussion, this band and this album surprise you at every turn. There is so much going on all the time, but it’s not cluttered, or crowded, or rushed, it’s meticulous and exact. I was imagining that when the songs, written by Berninger and guitarist Aaron Dessner for the most part, were completed, even the band themselves would be blown away at how everything came together in such a perfect way (then again, perhaps the band wasn’t surprised at all).

Throughout the album, each song builds in intensity. Devendorf’s drumming really leads the way, slightly ahead of Berninger’s voice picking up, and then there’s organ and piano and strings and chorus driving everything forward. Scott Devendorf’s dynamic bass compliments the percussion perfectly, and even Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire lends a hand with additional instruments and vocal arranging.

Lyrically, the songs are characteristically cryptic but also somewhat sinister, compounded at times by Berninger dropping his voice a register and suddenly you can feel the words rumble in your chest. The words and music create a visceral experience in these peak moments, each informing the other.

So, the songs: “Terrible Love” is a great opener, kicking off the first side with a stadium-filling treatise. The first half has some gorgeous songs, from “Sorrow” and “Little Faith” to “Anyone’s Ghost” - excellent. “Afraid of Everyone” hits the dad feels, as he sings “With my kid on my shoulders I try / Not to hurt anybody I like” but then you’re also aware that he’s clarifying who he isn’t going to hurt, meaning he’s going to hurt someone, most likely, but he doesn’t “have the drugs to sort it out,” providing a Don Draper-esque ominousness. But unlike Don Draper, he is going to “defend his family,” since he’s “afraid of everyone,” such as the “young blue bodies” and the “old red bodies,” now bringing a political aspect to his fear.

The halfway point, track 1 on side b, if you will, is the clear high point with “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” an incredible rock & roll song, though mystifying in its meaning. He sings “The floors are falling out from / Everybody I know” that could be a reference to the financial crisis a few years earlier: “I still owe money to the money.” But then it’s “God, I am / I’m on a bloodbuzz” like, his blood is boiling in anger? So, who knows. Still, it’s an incredible song bridging the first half to the next, which is more intense somehow, and, again, escalates in greatness with each track. After “Bloodbuzz Ohio” there’s “Lemonworld,” the wistful “Runaway” and the frightening “Conversation 16,” before the excellent penultimate track, “England.” On this one I can discern a small part of loneliness, perhaps calling back to “Sorrow,” with “Put an ocean and a river between everybody else / Between everything, yourself and home” and “You must be somewhere in London / You must be loving your life in the rain.” This has a remarkable crescendo, and it struck me that they succeeded in doing what Coldplay has been trying to do for two decades, and what U2 has been doing for four: a monumental stadium rock song with an intimacy like you’re the only one they’re singing to; it’s at the top of their lungs but you can hear the strings close by. Miraculous.

Again, I can’t believe I had not spent time with this album before this. Perhaps I am indeed growing into music I wasn’t ready for 15 years ago, but with The National, I can’t tell if it’s because I’m becoming wiser or realistic. There’s evil in the world, and hurt, and some people revel in suffering, but when you spend time with such an album, with stories of imperfect characters trying to hold on, and knowing that others are also listening and connecting with this awesome band, and these awesome songs, it brings you closer to others somehow, knowing that they know what you know, now, what The National has known, and shown you, and shared with you, and everyone else.