The National have returned with Laugh Track, a surprise new album that serves as “the second half of a double album” which began this past April with the band’s previous release, First Two Pages of Frankenstein. The new record is out now, and features appearances by Phoebe Bridgers, Rosanne Cash, and Bon Iver. Stream it below.
The band announced the album onstage this past weekend at their own Homecoming Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. Last month, they shared the singles “Space Invader” and “Alphabet City,” which both appear on the new album, along with “Weird Goodbyes,” the single with Bon Iver that the band shared in August 2022. Earlier this year, the band hinted that “Weird Goodbyes” wouldn’t appear on Frankenstein, alluding to a “future home” for it. Now, we know what that “future home” is.
According to the press release, the songs on Laugh Track were written alongside those on Frankenstein, and were worked-out in a live setting during the band’s 2022 tour. Coming into 2023, they decided to release Frankenstein, but chose to continue working on the tunes for Laugh Track, ultimately recording nine of the album’s 12 tracks during “impromptu” sessions at producer Tucker Martine’s studio in Portland, Oregon.
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The final few tracks were finished up during the release cycle for Frankenstein, with the new album’s closer, “Smoke Detector,” being recorded during a soundcheck for The National’s show in Vancouver on June 5, 2023. Speaking about finishing Laugh Track while Frankenstein was being shared with the world, the band’s guitarist, Bryce Dessner, described the process as “intense,” explaining: “It wasn’t super easy to refocus on ‘What are we doing with this?’ but it came about in a fairly organic way… It benefitted us to give it a little more time to capture the live energy of it. It’s what the band sounds like right now.”
For his part, frontman Matt Berninger said in a statement that “Laugh Track represents us coming out of this long mutation period.” During the promotion for Frankenstein, Berninger was open about the depression he was experiencing during the pandemic, and the doubts that were cast on the future of the band at the time. Now, though, the band seems to have once again tapped into the collaborative magic of songcraft that keeps their engines running. “I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but it feels like the shedding of a skin, an exoskeleton,” Berninger said. “It’s really fun. We all feel out of the chrysalis and ready to figure out what kind of creature we are now.”
Meanwhile, The National is still on tour, and is set to perform shows in Europe and North America through the end of November. They’ll also tour Australia with Fleet Foxes in early 2024. Check out the full list of their upcoming dates below, and grab your tickets for their US dates here (for their European shows, secure your seats here).
Laugh Track Artwork:
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