Listen to The National’s surprise new album ‘Laugh Track’

nme.com:

The National have released their surprise new album ‘Laugh Track‘. Check it out below.Announced at the weekend at the band’s own Homecoming Festival, the band’s ninth album comes in quick succession off the back of April’s acclaimed ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’.

The companion record features the same young boy from the predecessor’s album artwork, albeit colourised and in a living room setting.Featuring recent singles ‘Space Invader’ and ‘Alphabet City’, along with a re-recorded version of Bon Iver collaboration ‘Weird Goodbyes’, the 12-track record features material originally started in the same sessions as ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’ – before being “honed in live performances on tour this year” before being captured in “impromptu sessions at producer Tucker Martine’s Portland studio, Flora Recording & Playback”.Phoebe Bridgers returns to feature on the title track, while Rosanne Cash lends guest vocals to penultimate track ‘Crumble.

The nearly eight-minute album closer ‘Smoke Detector’ was recorded in June during a Vancouver soundcheck.Speaking of the more spontaneous and invigorated method of putting the album together, guitarist Aaron Dessner said: “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.