The National frontman and principal lyricist Matt Berninger’s second solo outing ‘Get Sunk’ finds him continuing to regain the confidence he’d thought he’d lost, while exploring additional musical textures outside of his day job.

Stream: ‘Get Sunk’ – Matt Berninger

And I am always thinking about time, and distance.

About the space that forms between two specific points, or places. And what occurs within that space – however far, or long, the distance ends up being. And, if within that space, there is the chance for the two points, on opposite ends – but not always in opposition to one another, mind you, to slowly move towards one another.

An intersection. Or a convergence.

In some instances, a collision.

I am always thinking about who we are now, and who we were at certain points in the past. However many years, or however far the distance has been traveled between the two. I think about the ways we have changed, or grown. Or matured. But I also think about the ways we have not. The parts of ourselves, however unflattering they may ultimately be, that we hold onto, regardless of how much time has elapsed.

I think there are opportunities, there, for an intersection. Or perhaps a collision. You don’t want to – or, rather, I do not often wish to, regress into behaviors, or patterns, that I had worked to grow out of, or distance myself from. And it is not a regression, really, but more of an acknowledgement, or an acceptance of sorts, however reluctant we may be to do so. You can see who you were, and maybe in the distance, who you would wish to continue your efforts to become, and in the space, in the center, who you are in this moment.

* * *

We have The National at home.

And if you live within certain pockets of the internet, you will understand what I am referencing – this joke. And my intent, in introducing it here, is not to be dismissive or condescending, or even unsupportive, but more than anything, I wish to use it as a means to try and describe something that I am often giving consideration to, and attempting to draw a comparison between.

And perhaps you are like me, and you, too, are giving this consideration. Listening analytically, or thoughtfully, and taking other things, however seemingly insignificant they may appear at first, into account as you do listen.

Within the context of contemporary popular music, I do find myself thinking about the idea of the solo album – specifically from an artist whose voice is so synonymous with the band that they are at the front of. And I suppose you can ask the same question when an artist lends their voice to a new project altogether. How is that band, or project, different? And outside of that shared voice, how are they similar?

How is a solo album different? Is there something distinct or unique about the tone or the aesthetic that will assist in setting it apart from the work of the band that the artist is best known for? Are there ways in which they are the same?

Does any of this matter?

Perhaps if you do not listen analytically, and thoughtfully, then maybe none of it does.

Maybe these are questions you do not wish to think about when you are trying to listen to an album for leisure. But if you are like me, and you listen, and think about music the same way I do, then maybe there have been instances where you have wondered the same things.

Matthew Donald Berninger’s first outing away from his work as the unmistakable voice of the beloved and long-running indie rock group The National arrived around a decade ago – billed as a duo, he paired with Brent Knopf of Menomena to form EL VY (the plural of Elvis.) They released one album, thus far, under that moniker – Return to the Moon. The group is still listed as active on the scholarly journal Wikipedia, though I am confident in describing it as long-dormant.

I am remiss to write Return to The Moon off as a midlife crisis album, but around the time of its release, Berninger had grown his hair out to what I, personally, would have considered to be a questionable length, and had relocated, with his family, to California.

It is an album that I did listen to – it’s an album that, when my career as a music writer on the internet was still more or less in its infancy, I had written a piece on.

It is an album that I also, in the 10 years that have elapsed, have not returned to, and had, quite honestly, forgotten about entirely.

We have The National at home.

I would make a strong argument that The National are one of the few bands that were successfully able to make it out of the early 2000s – in the era of mp3 blogs and when a Pitchfork score could truly make or break you, The National’s rise to prominence and the eventual finding of an audience took time, and once they had attracted a wider listenership, the group’s sound, and scope, continued to grow, and evolve.

As did Berninger as a vocalist, and a lyricist.

As a singer, known for his resonant baritone, over time, he became much more confident – on the band’s earliest albums, he falls into a kind of “speak/sing” which he still will do occasionally, or you can still hear echoes of it now, but it is much more melodious in comparison.

As a writer, the shadowy, hyper-literate ambiguity found in the songs on Alligator, for example, or its follow-up Boxer, isn’t long gone – not completely. But as a whole, and I suppose this comes with time, and age, and in how we grow, Berninger’s lyrics, now, are far less vague, or murky, in terms of imagery and phrase turns, comparatively speaking.

Outside of a one-off single, “Walking On A String,” released near the end of 2019, Berninger’s solo debut arrived near the end of 2020 – inherently not the best time to do anything, let alone try to thrive creatively, or release an album into the world. Written and recorded well before the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the spring of that year, Serpentine Prison found Berninger closely collaborating with an unlikely name – Booker T. Jones. Of Booker T. And The M.G’s.

The pair had worked together once before, in 2011, with Berninger contributing somewhat out-of-place but well-intended vocals, alongside Sharon Jones, on the song “Representing Memphis,” from Jones’ The Road to Memphis. But even with his work as a featured vocalist on the song, a middle-aged, morose, white man ,and a then 75-year-old blues, R&B, and soul legend seemed like an odd coupling.

And there is a small backstory to how the album came together, as there is, of course, a small backstory to how Berninger slowly developed its follow-up, Get Sunk. Serpentine Prison had originally started as a covers album – specifically an homage to the Jones-produced Stardust, a collection of covers recorded by Willie Nelson in 1978. In working together, Jones encouraged Berninger’s songwriting outside of his role in The National, and the idea of the covers album was scrapped entirely in favor of recording these new original songs.

At the the time, Serpentine Prison also contained what were, for a while anyway, the final songs Berninger would write before the pandemic plunged him into a serious depressive episode, and debilitating writer’s block – the slow clawing of his way out of both was well documented when The National returned in 2023 with their twin albums, First Two Pages of Frankenstein, and Laugh Track.

The depressive in me often recognizes, and is drawn to, the depressive nature of someone else – specifically within a form of art, like music, or literature. This is not unique to me, I am certain.

But the person in me who wishes to feel better, or improve, even in the slightest, and who has grown up enough to see that being the saddest person in the room is no longer edgy, or sexy, to anyone, recognizes and appreciates when someone else has made strides to improve, or to feel as well as they are able to.

It is by no means a “sunny” record in terms of its lyricism, but Get Sunk is, I think, much more optimistic, or hopeful – or at least wishes for hope and optimism – than Berninger has been in the past. If Serpentine Prison was the sound of a vocalist finding their way, on their own, and working within spaces not totally familiar, five years later, Get Sunk is a collection of songs that is representative of a vocalist, and writer, who has become outwardly much more comfortable and confident in exploring those unfamiliar possibilities – across its 10 songs, there is no shortage of moments that, yes, are certainly indicative of Berninger working without the input of his four National bandmates.

But there are also the few places on Get Sunk that do ultimately – and this is neither a good, nor bad thing, but simply an observation – sound like The National we have at home.

Get Sunk - Matt Berninger — Matt Berninger’s sophomore solo album, ‘Get Sunk,’ out now via Book / Concord Records!

* * *

I hesitate to say that Get Sunk is at its best or is most successful when Berninger plays against type, in terms of how we, as listeners, may be most familiar with hearing his voice, or rather, what we are most used to hearing his voice soaring above. And I will say, up front, that much like Serpentine Prison, which at the time I was certainly drawn to, Get Sunk is a fine album – there are moments that really do work, and are rather compelling, but it is by no means a perfect album, and for as many moments that do captivate, there are places where it does falter.

Something that, and it isn’t in every song, certainly, but something that both Serpentine Prison revealed, as does Get Sunk, is a kind of tenderness, or softness, to Berninger as a performer. There are, of course, no shortages of, like, somber or downcast National songs, but in his work outside of the group, and in collaborating with others in terms of arranging and production, you can hear a kind of gentleness. And it is that gentleness, here, in a few places, that does create some of the more fascinating and resonant songs from this set.

One of the softer moments, or at least songs that features a little less of an edge, is the sauntering, penultimate track, “Silver Jeep,” which features vocals from Julia Laws, who performs under the name Ronboy – and whom is also serving as Berninger’s opener on his spring tour in support of Get Sunk. In terms of what it borrows, musically, from The National, the presence of a horn arrangement – performed by Kyle Resnick, who tours as a supplemental member of The National, playing trumpet, among other instruments – feels slightly familiar to how the band has incorporated these additional layers, or textures, over the last 17 or 18 years. And while the brassy sounds serve as a means to introduce one of the melodies within, rather than being just an additional element, the cavernous, melancholic piano chords also have a air of familiarity, though at least here on “Silver Jeep,” they do not sound as smilier to the kind of piano accompaniment that The National’s Aaron Dessner favors.

I would never refer to Berninger, in his voice, how he performs, or his presence on stage, as a “crooner,” but “Silver Jeep” has that kind of feeling to it – it shuffles, but in doing so, it shuffles along sadly. It is not morose – though that is something that Berninger does well. But it is melancholic, and perhaps self-aware enough about that sense of melancholy, to try and lighten the mood with just a hint of playfulness in the song’s chorus, when his voice is intertwined with Laws.

Berninger, as a lyricist, over the last decade or so, has become much more outwardly personal in what he wishes to write about and what he wants to reveal. I mean, I think his lyrics were always personal, or reflective in nature, but on the earliest National albums, they were dressed up in this very poetic, fragmented ambiguity – a device that he has opted to use less. And there is, of course, the blurry line between fiction, or imagination, and something autobiographical – sometimes it is tough to know how much is based in truth, and how much isn’t. Or if that even really matters at all within pop songwriting.

I tell you all of that to tell you this – there is a kind of vagueness, often sensual in nature, or suggestive in a way, that Berninger writes from. You can hear it in The National song “The Last Time,” from Trouble Will Find Me, and you can hear him return to it on “Tour Manager,” from Laugh Track. “Silver Jeep” doesn’t come from that place exactly, but from somewhere similar, or adjacent, if that makes sense. There is a kind of notion of something that he wanders around – here he literally dances or saunters himself around it based on the pacing and rhythm of the song. It is fascinating – the gentleness of it, musically, and how it slowly unfolds, often with beauty, with this nervy uncertainty in his words.

There is a reluctance, or a bashfulness, in the lyrics as the song begins. “The last time I tried to write to you, my thumbs were numb – my senses residue,” he explains. “I gotta get a message to you without signals.”

As the first verse continues, there is less of the urgency, and more description, which I suppose serves as a means of giving more details to the character Berninger has assigned himself in the narrative. “I dream of dreaming, and grind my teeth,” he confesses, and then adds, “I picked up Sprites for both of us at the drive-thru,” the final syllable he then holds a little longer to make the connection to the chorus.

“I didn’t wan you to think I knew anything at all about the rumor somebody saw you somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, in a silver jeep,” he sings, along with Laws’ smoldering voice coming in underneath his, the two of them putting in the work to bend and stretch the words so that they tumble into just the right places and are caught by the swaying nature of the instrumentation.

The second verse strikes a little bit of a different tone – starker at first, or bleaker, and then wounded and defensive in the domestic discourse it portrays. “All I want is for my soul to keep working,” Berninger explains. “I see the sunlight creep around the curtain – I’m not going anywhere near the window.”

“If the guy comes to do the garden,” he continues, in a line that, in the daily minutiae it captures, is one of the more honest and resonant lines on the record. “I’ll leave an envelope by the faucet. I’m not expecting anything from you, though,” he adds, in a tone that does cut subtly.

The high-water mark of “Silver Jeep” arrives at its bridge, where Laws doesn’t take the lead, exactly, but does begin to sing on her own, with Berninger then adding over the top of her to punctuate. “I only want you to write on my bones and run after me,” she sings in a voice that is quiet and smoky, which lends itself to the truly jazzy infection of the song as a whole. “Until you see my lights are gone,” she concludes.

And there is no real resolution from the implied tension or conflict depicted in “Silver Jeep,” though the song itself finds resolution in the soulful, swoony way that it comes to an end, with all of the elements coming together in a way that does shimmer, albeit somberly.

Musically, “Silver Jeep” is not a risk, though the affect it takes is different from both elsewhere on Get Sunk, and from other songs in Berninger’s canonical work as a solo artist. The riskiest, or most difficult song on the album arrives at the top half of its second side, “Nowhere Special.”

As a singer, Berninger can do weird and shouty – just listen to some of the punkier songs on The National’s Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, or even some of Alligator. The band itself does not really have a penchant for experimentation with the potential for alienating listeners, and “Nowhere Special” doesn’t alienate exactly. Even though it is not one of the album’s finer moments, it is worth mentioning simply because it is so bizarre, it becomes admirable in terms of the dedication to making a dizzying and uncomfortable song.

* * *

I am hesitant to say that structurally, Get Sunk is front loaded with its best, or its most accessible or genuinely interesting material, but both of the album’s advance singles are tucked within its fist half, as are the tracks it opens with – the bombastic “No Love” and the rippling and pulsating “Inland Ocean,” the former of which is among the most compelling and lyrically thoughtful, and the latter being among the album’s finest moments.

We have The National at home.

And I guess what I mean by that is it is certainly hard to make yourself distinct, or differentiate between what you do within a band, or group, and what you are doing on your own. I do nearly always return to the same examples when I give consideration to this – the notion of the solo album. Or even the idea of the vocalist from one, well-established group starting a new project. I specifically think about Deftones frontman Chino Moreno – a truly iconic voice, and one of the elements that sets the band apart from their peers within “hard rock” circles. Moreno has found himself at the front of three other acts over the last 20 years – two of which were ultimately one-off projects, and the third being one that he occasionally resurrects.

But what makes Team Sleep different from Deftones? A little less aggressive of a sound? A little more experimental at times? What about Crosses? Are they “Deftone-lite?” Deftones with less edge and more keyboards?

I tell you all of that to tell you this – “No Love,” once it warms up, is one of the moments on Get Sunk that finds Berninger working from within a texture that is reminiscent of his work within The National.

“No Love” also is one of the moments where even when things do feel a little familiar, there is still a distinction – you can hear that in the opening moments, because it begins with a sense of urgency in the form of a dusty sounding breakbeat sample, before an emergent, kind of serious sounding progression on the piano tumbles in on top of that.

The serious nature of the song is then echoed with Berninger’s opening line. “This place has a sinking feeling.”

Berninger, and his collaborators on this track, sustain the programmed beat and piano progression, with a small amount of etherial fluttering in the background, through the first verse and chorus, with more instrumentation, including live drums, arriving right on time at the start of the second verse – it’s a structural move that you can see coming from a mile away but the kids of predictability is forgiven because it is ultimately effective in the forward momentum of the song, as it continues to swell, and then shimmer, in its second half.

In writing about music, I am aware of how often I may rely on the same words to describe the feeling that song has, or specific sounds. “Anthemic” and “triumphant” are two words that I feel like I may overuse, but I return to them as descriptors because I think they both convey a quality, and a sensation, that I am uncertain how else to explain. I am hesitant though, given his overall nature, to refer to Berninger, or this song, as “triumphant,” though there is a kind of bombastic, exciting feeling to it – the way it propels itself towards the conclusion does make it one of the songs on Get Sunk that does feel quite anthemic.

For as anthemic as it becomes, lyrically, there is a kind of dread, or hopelessness in what Berninger sings – creating a startling juxtaposition with the heights that the song scales to when he utters phrases like, “The vibes aren’t right.” And, really, “No Love” is one of the songs on here that is more about the whole – the lyrics do not take a backseat, or are not important, but I don’t believe they are the focus, or that they should be the focus.

Something that Berninger and The National really explored within a few albums in their catalog – and something that I do think about, often, in terms of analytically listening and thinking about contemporary popular music, is the idea of tension and release, and trying to find the right balance between the two.

The very top of Get Sunk is a study in that, I think. Just in terms of the smoldering nature it opens with, the frenzy it works itself into, and then the way it recedes back in before moving into the second half. And within this kind of extended look at the ways that those extremes can be balanced, there are smaller examples within the songs themselves.

Certainly one of Get Sunk’s most compelling songs overall and one that does walk that fine line of restraint and release is the opening track, “Inland Ocean,” which even from the moment you hear the first quivering guitar chord strummed, is the kind of song that you can tell was assembled to be placed at the beginning of the album.

There is a hypnotic nature to how the elements of “Inland Ocean” sound – and in the sparsity of the beginning, once the other elements are introduced, it does find its way into a very subtle groove that overtakes you as you listen.

The thing about the tension that “Inland Ocean” works to build, then eventually loosen its grip on, is that it is a slow burning kind – Berninger remains accompanied, save for the tremoloed waves of the electric guitar, and the occasionally electronic fluttering sounds, well through the first verse and the verse chorus, before he’s joined by additional atmospherics, and lightly brushed out percussion – the drums themselves in this song are one of the elements that makes it as compelling and well assembled as it is, which these enormous fills coming in to serve as punctuation, the further along in the song we’re taken.

As it builds towards its conclusion, “Inland Ocean” doesn’t get lost in itself exactly, because it is more graceful than that, but within the release of tension, it does run a risk of here maybe being too many layers, or, like, too may sounds happening at once, with the titular phrase repeated as a mantra of sorts, and the hypnotic feeling that the song opens with begins to fade, and is replaced by myriad glistening, swirling layers.

And I suppose like the slight sense of dread that Berninger writes from on the subsequent “No Love,” there is something bleak, or at least a little unnerving, that lurks just underneath the surface of “Inland Ocean” in terms of his lyricism, because it becomes clear there is a sense of loss, and very visceral kind of melancholy that accompanies it. “I flew to see a friend. She was already dust by then,” he sings ominously. “ I needed a walk – I needed a swim. I flew to Indiana to see a friend,” he continues, before these stark observations take a turn inward, or at least become seemingly a little more personal, or reflective.

“Let me stay here. Let me please,” he explains. “Wrap me up in your summer sheets. Say you’re never getting rid of me – wrap me up, and bury me.”

The idea of mortality has never really been present in Berninger’s writing before – though has he has grown, and matured, both in life and as a songwriter, he has become more interested in the notions of time and age, and where those things do intersect. So the ruminating on death, or an “end,” if you will, in this song is what makes it one of the most resonant of the set.

“Tell me what to wear, and what to say,” he asks, as the second verse begins. “Maybe I’ll turn into you someday,” he continues, before returning to the phrasing from the first verse, of walking and swimming, and summer sheets to be wrapped in for burial.

“Everything ends before I want it to,” Berninger confesses with more smoldering urgency in the third verse. “I needed more time alone with you. Isn’t there anything I can do?” he asks, before arriving at the final, lingering observation of the song. “Everything ends before I want it to.”

And for as rhythmic as the vocal melody is within the chorus, and the added layers of lightness that surround Berninger’s voice, that bright, soothing kind of feeling is really offset by the two lines he sings, and repeats.

“God loves the inland ocean. Lost cause – I have no emotion.”

* * *

Something that Berninger does well is “sad.”

And I would argue that sadness – like, the emotion we feel, is complicated. Or perhaps, if you are like me, you have a complicated relationship with. How you feel it. How often you feel it.

I don’t think The National started out to be a brooding, gloomy, and inherently sadder-sounding band, but it is the sound and the aesthetic that they found themselves wandering into around the time they were writing and recording 2005’s Alligator. And you can hear this, too, as the band’s profile began to rise with the slow, slow burning success of Alligator, and how this sound or aesthetic, worked its way into their real breakthroughs, Boxer, from 2007, and High Violet, from 2010.

The National were never a band truly having an identity crisis but I think at a certain point, after achieving a certain level of notoriety, they were uncertain where to go next, or how to get there. And I think Berninger, as voice of the band, may have struggled with how much sadness to depict within his writing, and how to depict it.

The way sadness, or a kind of melancholy, or whatever you want to call it, is portrayed on Get Sunk is fascinating in the fact that it can, at least in the case of “Breaking Into Acting,” the song that closes out the first side, and was the second single issued in advance of the album, be incredibly gorgeous – there is a tenderness to it. It doesn’t have to be brooding, or gloomy, but rather, at least here, it sways gently against a sparse, sorrowful arrangement, barely rising above a hush.

Featuring a very understated, swooning, and somber guest appearance from Meg Duffy, who performs under the name Hand Habits, “Breaking Into Acting” begins with a kind of intimately recorded acoustic guitar – in how quietly, and slowly the fingers pluck away at the strings, you can hear, like, the noise in the room, along with Berninger warming up into the rhythm before he delivers the first line. The guitar is joined by a kind of icy synthesizer drone that shifts its tone, and inflection, the further into the first verse Berninger takes us – and then the carefully dropped and tumbling notes from a cavernous sounding piano, each of them placed with a kind of deliberateness that does emphasize the sorrow the song works effortlessly to conjure.

There is something both direct, or at least pointed, perhaps, but also ambiguous in the writing on “Breaking Into Acting.” In a quote regarding the song’s meaning, Berninger said, “Sometimes you have to fake forgiveness before you can actually forgive.”

That certainly casts a pall, which already moves with not a sinister nature, but there is something uneasy and suspect about what is depicted. And it is hard to know if Berninger is just observing and commenting, or if the “you” being addressed is at least in part himself. However, the results are arresting, in how delicate the song is, and in how both understanding but accusatory of a contrast there is what is depicted.

“Ever since you were a kid, you could cry on command,” Berninger begins. “Everybody said it’s a gift, you should use it whenever you can. You can do it big, or you can do it like you don’t really care,” he continues. “Just tell you where – turns out almost anyone can do it.”

It’s in the chorus where Berninger is joined by Duffy’s vocals, which add a stirring, fragile layer of beauty to the song’s already delicate nature. “It’s a scam,” the two sing. “Always have a cheatsheet in your jacket. You’re breaking into acting – you’ll do anything to be discovered. It’s getting out of hand – your mouth is always full of blood packets. You’re breaking into acting,” they continue, though for as perhaps frustrated as the narration becomes with this individual, there is a slight assurance, though I am uncertain how sincere it is, in the chorus’ final line.

“You’re gonna make me a fan.”

* * *

We have The National at home.

If you live within a certain pocket of the internet, as I do, you will understand the joke that I am referencing. And my intent here, in introducing it, and my attempt to continue it as a minor through line as I reflect on Get Sunk, is not to be dismissive or condescending or unsupportive, but more than anything, I want to use it as a means to try and describe something that I am often giving consideration to, analytically, and attempt to draw comparisons between.

Within the context of contemporary popular music, I find I am often thinking about the idea of the solo album. Or, adjacently, when the vocalist from one band finds themselves at the front of a different band entirely.

How are these things different? How is the solo album unique or distinct? What sets it apart? How is it similar?

Does any of this matter?

I think about the case – and this is the case that I have returned to in the past when giving all of this thought – of Thom Yorke, though admittedly, in being open and honest, over recent years, I find myself at odds and rather disappointed and frustrated with him, as well as the rest of his Radiohead bandmates. Regardless, how are Thom Yorke’s solo albums (there are three of them) different from his work within Radiohead? The easy thing to say is that The Eraser, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, and Anima all rely much more heavily on glitchy electronics and programming as opposed to live, and potentially more traditional instrumentation.

One could argue that of the three, The Eraser is the one that, nearly 20 years old at this point, is the only one that was truly memorable, or resonant, with the other two not being of diminishing returns exactly, but also did not hit with the same thoughtful and emotional weight as his first time out on his own.

How is Thom Yorke’s seemingly one-off project, Atoms For Peace, different from Radiohead? Or even different from his solo albums?

How is the group he is currently devoting most of his time and energy to right now, The Smile – founded with Radiohead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Johnny Greenwood – different?

The Smile, if you are looking to make this kind of comparison, is truthfully the Radiohead we have at home.

We have The National at home.

Like Serpentine Prison, Get Sunk is, overall, not The National we have at home. There is enough of a difference, or a distinction, that allows it to stand on its own – though I feel like, to a casual or fair-weather listener, they may not (and rightfully so) be able to notice some of those details.

I tell you all of that to tell you this, there is a moment on this album, both in how it unfolds lyrically, and how it sounds and is structured, that would not feel out of place in one of the more latter day National records – this isn’t a bad thing, or a good thing, I don’t think. It is just, at least in sitting down with Get Sunk in full, the space where the song exists.

Released as the first single from Get Sunk, “Bonnet of Pins” is without question, the album’s most infectious, and most exhilarating song, propelling and writhing itself forward through a tangible bombast, while Berninger writes from a place that is field by both anxiety and allure.

The things that makes “Bonnet of Pins” most similar to a National song are the driving percussion, and the searing, distended guitar riff that comes in near the beginning of the song, and plays the melody that Berninger will eventually adopt once he arrives at the vivid chorus – the accompaniment from the horn, as well, echoes the brassy flair that many of The National’s most combustive songs also include.

Structurally, “Bonnet of Pins” is incredibly well assembled and knows exactly what it is doing, just in terms of the gradual, though anticipated, build-up to the explosive, slightly anthemic chorus. There is some restraint shown as Berninger begins, within the first verse, where you can hear a strummy acoustic guitar and a thick, rolling bass line, though things pick up, and more elements are added in the few moments before, when everything lands at just the right moment – bombastic, yes, and even with the starkness of the lyricism, there is a kind of musical jubilance that “Bonnet of Pins” treads on the edge of, and almost becomes too much, or perhaps, Berninger’s collaborators nearly lose control of it as it grows in urgency, and volume, during the shouty bridge, and the cacophony of its final, instrumental minute.

In an interview about the song, outside of the origin of the title coming from a sculpture he saw, Berninger said “Bonnet of Pins” is “A moment of reconnection with someone from your past, or a ghost or something. So it’s kind of a night out in the world with an old friend, or an old ghost.”

He also added that the song serves as a reminder that grief can also be a little funny – and “Bonnet of Pins” is certainly not a funny song, but there is a kind of dark humor to it, or that you can feel that it was written with a little bit of a knowing wink.

Matt Berninger has been writing songs for a long time now – and in doing so, there are the obvious, or intentional callbacks or references that he makes to older songs, and here, there is less of an intentional reference, I think, but “Bonnet of Pins” shares similar imagery to “Coat on A Hook,” from The National’s most recent effort, Laugh Track, a surprise release in the early autumn of 2023.

“Two years since I saw you last curling your hair with a pistol,” he sang on “Coat on A Hook.” “Telling me not to be so melodramatic. I’ll be waving red flashlights on a roof, on an island – you always come back from things like this.”

And it is also similar, though certainly less of a love song, or song about love, to what is depicted in the Trouble Will Find Me standout, “Pink Rabbits.”

“It takes a lot to really disappear,” Berninger begins, as his voice eases into the kind of danceable, chugging, indie rock rhythm “Bonnet of Pins” sustains itself on. “Always leave traces in the leaves. Never thought I’d see her here – never thought I’d see her again.”

“She sidewinders through the room to me with a real cigarette and a styrofoam coffee,” he continues, with the momentum of the song beginning to noticeably build. “She’s still wearing her father’s feather jacket. She holds out her hands and I stand to receive her – trying to remember the last time I’d seen her. Somehow, she looks younger now.”

And there is something exhilarating, musically, that occurs, and lyrically, something extremely vivid, when the chorus arrives – “She finishes off my drink and puts on her bonnet of pins and says, ‘I thought i’d find you much quicker than this, you must’ve thought I didn’t exist – poor you. I do. We’d better go before your boyfriends cry.’”

The song doesn’t nearly fall apart, no, not really, after the second chorus, and when it careens into a shouty, punky bridge section – there’s something very familiar about how it feels, like it is just a little similar to The National song “Tropic Morning News” – but the bridge is the least successful part of the song, unfortunately. It does right itself though, for one more run through the chorus, this time with a little more urgency, both in the music, and in Berninger’s slightly strained delivery.

Even though “Bonnet of Pins” uses the idea of this character – the female antagonist, as a larger metaphor of sorts, it is still wildly fascinating and extremely vivid songwriting, and creates a startlingly colorful, and memorable portrait – one where someone is both alarmed and also allured by something or someone from the past, that saunters back into their life with seemingly confidence to spare, leaving us in a moment of wondering what happens next in this proposed night out with the past.

* * *

I hadn’t sat down and listened to Serpentine Prison, from beginning to end, in a long time. For as often as I do find myself listening to The National – they were a band that, early on in my relationship with my spouse, we were both very invested in, though admittedly I think she is a little less so now.

Upon its release in late 2020, I was very compelled by Serpentine Prison – I had selected it as one of my favorite records from the year, and my original analysis of it was relatively positive, and in revisiting, as I continue to collect my thoughts on Get Sunk, I can see why it was an album that I was drawn to.

It’s sad. It is a sad album. And at the time, I certainly saw countless (and unflattering) reflections of myself in Berninger’s writing. And even now, I can still see glimmers of who I most certainly was, or how I felt, five years ago, despite the herculean efforts on my part.

Serpentine Prison is a sleepy album. It’s not even so much that it is quiet. But it operates from such a place of restraint that it barely, if ever, rises above a certain intensity. The sleepiness makes it feel a little slow, even though it, like Get Sunk, is 10 songs.

I tell you all of that to tell you this – I have hesitation to say there is a night and day difference between Berninger’s first solo outing and its follow up, but Get Sunk is the product of growth and time.

And I often find myself thinking about those things. Growth. Time. Time and distance. I get the I impression that Matt Berninger is also often giving those things consideration.

There is a space that forms between two specific points or places. Within that space, however far or long that distance ends up being, something usually occurs, as the points on opposite ends, not always in opposition, slowly move toward one another.

There is an intersection. Or a convergence. Or a collision.

I find myself thinking about who we are now, and who we were at certain points within the past. The way we have changed. Or matured. Or grown.

Get Sunk, then, I think, is Matt Berninger thinking about how he has changed, or grown, or matured. It is not a sad album, but there are some somber songs, or moments. But that is certainly indicative of where Berninger is now.

The press materials for Get Sunk do play up that angle – after relocating to to Connecticut with his spouse and teenage daughter, Berninger began writing song lyrics on old baseballs and creating visual art pieces from items found in the barn at his home – you can see the baseballs, at least, on his (currently) very active Instagram page.

Coming out of a long, deep depression and finding his way back from writer’s block, even after the two albums he worked on with The National and released two years ago, he still had more he wished to say. And the songs on Get Sunk, in some form, had been gestating for a while – in preparing the album, and working from where he is, and who he is now, he went back and re-recorded vocals, and re-wrote lyrics.

I am remiss to say that this is a sleepy album, because it is not. At least not compared to Serpentine Prison. It is far more energetic, and often bombastic. I think that is in part due to the close collaboration, this time out, with engineer and producer Sean O’Brien, who was involved in Berninger’s previous solo outing, but not at the helm like this in terms of receiving co-writing credits on the songs, and playing multiple instruments. It makes it a little less of a relaxed affair, but nowhere near as nervy or explosive as The National often are.

Regardless of how sleepy, or energetic, of an album Get Sunk is, it does come at a curious and coincidental time – the middle of April marked the 20th anniversary of The National’s landmark third album, Alligator. Though the closeness to that milestone, and the arrival of this solo album, are not intended for comparison, or even contrast. But a metric of growth.

The backstory surrounding Get Sunk’s creation involves Berninger, following his relocation to a more pastoral section of the East Coast, reflecting and feeling wistful for his childhood summers, away from Ohio, and on his aunt and uncle’s farmland in Indiana.

The album is touted as not autobiographical, even though songwriting is inherently so to some extent – but rather, it is “the narrator processing how he became himself.” It’s a bold declaration, but it is not incorrect. Maybe a little hyperbolic in nature.

It is an album that can be thoughtful and compelling. It can be uneven or perplexing. It can be exciting. It can be The National we have at home. It’s not a perfect record. Serpentine Prison certainly was not either. And, I mean, I was not anticipating this record would be, and maybe neither was Berninger. “I was able to get the blurry picture as close to just right for me,” he is quoted as saying at the end of the press announcement for Get Sunk.

Get Sunk is the sound of an artist that, with each time out, solo or with the band they are best known as a part of, grows more confident and comfortable; the sound of an artist that, in that confidence, and comfort, wishes to look back and reflect, while finding a moment of solace in the moment they are in now, without spending too much energy looking ahead.

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