Album Review: Get Sunk by Matt Berninger

The National frontman’s second solo album is a subtly textured delight that feels both playful and emotional The National may be on a hiatus at the moment – after releasing not one but two albums in 2023 and embarking on a truly mammoth world tour – but it seems nobody truly rests in the Brooklyn-based band. Aaron and Bryce Dessner are very in-demand songwriters and producers for a whole host of different bands, while Matt Berninger has decided to dip his toe back into the world of solo projects. Berninger is no stranger to the side-band project of course.

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Still under the spell, after all Get Sunk feels like Matt Berninger stranded between stations. The National frontman's second solo album is intentionally built upon questions of identity - as the Bandcamp blurb says, it's "not overtly autobiographical, but the narrator is processing how he became himself" - but in larger senses, this record threatens to be subsumed by them. Solo careers by artists in established bands are always a bit fraught - how distinct can they really be when a recognizable voice and songwriting style will always be clearly associated with their more prominent vehicle? Whenever I see John Krasinski starring in yet another action movie, there are uncanny flashes of Jim staring at the camera while pranking Dwight one more time.

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For so many people out there, the Midwest gets its hooks in you, refusing to let go. Matt Berninger, frontman of the National (a Brooklyn band by way of Cincinnati), spent ten years living in Los Angeles before moving to Connecticut. His lifestyle may be better suited to the coasts, especially with this most recent move, filled with days spent outside, painting, reading, and smoking weed, but he always finds himself drawn back to middle America.

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Of all the peculiar spectacles the pandemic provided us with, the lead singer of arguably America's most beloved indie rock band making his solo debut at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds last month is right up there with the strangest. Matt Berninger released his first album under his own name, 'Serpentine Prison', in 2020, but couldn't tour it; as such, this follow-up feels like a first proper go-around as his own man. Not just because he'll be taking 'Get Sunk' out on the road, either; his last record felt scattershot, like he was feeling his way into operating without the compositions of the Dessner twins to write for, and there were perhaps too may collaborators spoiling the broth.

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While the Dessner brothers produce the planet's biggest pop stars, release collections of classical works and score arthouse films galore, The National's singer and lyricist Matt Berninger is keeping the indie-rock flame burning. His 2020 Booker T-assisted solo debut Serpentine Prison was a soulful and subdued gem, but Get Sunk is a return to the energy of early National. The driving, New Order-indebted single Bonnet Of Pins is a case in point, all vivid and surreal wordplay delivered deadpan till pent-up frustrations burst through.

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