There’s something almost perverse about the timing here. While his National bandmates Aaron and Bryce Dessner spend their days crafting sonic landscapes for Taylor Swift and scoring films that win Oscars, Matt Berninger finds himself alone in a Connecticut house, wrestling with the same restless melancholy that’s defined his songwriting for two decades. Get Sunk, his second solo album, arrives like a dispatch from that particular kind of creative isolation—not lonely, exactly, but deeply solitary in the way that only middle-aged artists seem to understand.
The opening track, “Inland Ocean,” sets the stage with characteristic Berninger sleight of hand. His voice enters alone, that familiar baritone carrying the weight of gravity itself, before the rhythm section kicks in with an urgency that feels both calculated and spontaneous. It’s a microcosm of what makes this album work: the careful balance between restraint and release, between the intimate whisper and the full-throated roar.
Where Serpentine Prison felt like Berninger retreating into himself, Get Sunk sounds like an artist remembering why he started making music in the first place. The energy here is palpable, almost urgent. “Bonnet of Pins” drives forward with a New Order-influenced pulse that recalls The National’s Alligator era, when the band still played venues where you could see the whites of everyone’s eyes. Berninger’s lyrics remain characteristically oblique—something about dangerous ex-lovers and sharp edges—but the delivery is direct, almost confrontational.
“Frozen Oranges” reaches back to The National’s Boxer era with its horn arrangements and layered percussion, but there’s something more reflective here, less concerned with grand statements than with capturing fleeting moments. The song builds slowly, methodically, like fragments accumulating into something approaching coherence.
The album’s emotional centre is “Breaking Into Acting,” a duet with Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy that explores the exhausting performance of forgiveness. Their voices don’t quite align perfectly, and that slight discord creates something more interesting than harmony ever could. Duffy’s presence softens Berninger’s natural detachment without undermining it, creating space for vulnerability that feels earned rather than performed.
Then there’s “Nowhere Special,” probably the album’s most adventurous moment: a late-night spoken-word piece that sounds like a rambling voicemail left at 3 AM. It shouldn’t work, but it does, partly because Berninger commits completely to the experiment, and partly because the musical backdrop—repetitive keys and drums that pulse like a heartbeat—creates the right kind of hypnotic space for his words to land.
“Junk” opens with the kind of darkly poetic imagery that made The National’s reputation: “Crows, bones, and ashes and neverending roaches / That’s what I’m betting on as morning approaches.” The chorus—”You can have me baby, do what you want, take me all apart, I’m only junk”—carries the weight of middle-aged resignation delivered with such precision that it transforms despair into something approaching beauty.
Berninger has always been a master of emotional misdirection, and Get Sunk finds him deploying that skill with particular effectiveness. Songs that begin with quiet introspection explode into cathartic release; moments of apparent despair reveal unexpected humour. It’s the sound of an artist who’s learned to trust his instincts, even when they lead him into uncomfortable territory.
The album isn’t without its missteps. “Silver Jeep” feels a bit too breezy for its own good, its lounge-like atmosphere disrupting the album’s otherwise careful pacing. And while “Times of Difficulty” carries a dusty Americana charm, it doesn’t quite provide the resolution that the album’s arc seems to promise. These are minor complaints, though, in the context of what Get Sunk accomplishes overall.
What’s most striking about the album is how it manages to feel both deeply personal and universally relatable. Berninger has always excelled at capturing the particular anxiety of modern adulthood—the sense of being perpetually unsettled despite outward success—and Get Sunk finds him exploring that territory with renewed focus and energy.
The production, handled largely by Sean O’Brien (who also worked on Serpentine Prison), strikes the right balance between polish and rawness. The songs feel lived-in rather than constructed, organic rather than overthought. There’s space for everything to breathe, from Berninger’s voice to the intricate percussion work that drives many of these tracks.
Get Sunk ultimately succeeds because it doesn’t try to reinvent Matt Berninger or position him as something he’s not. Instead, it finds him doing what he’s always done best: transforming personal anxiety into communal catharsis, crafting songs that feel both intimate and expansive. It’s not quite the masterpiece that The National’s best albums represent, but it’s something perhaps more valuable: proof that great songwriters can continue to find new ways to explore familiar territory.
The album’s title proves prophetic in the best possible way. This isn’t sinking as drowning; it’s sinking as settling, as finding your level, as discovering what remains when everything else falls away. For Berninger, what remains is his voice, his words, and his unwavering commitment to the kind of emotional honesty that makes great songs feel like conversations with old friends. Get Sunk reminds us why that’s more than enough.
Get Sunk is released May 30 via Book /Concord Records
Photo – Chantal Anderson
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