National - Laugh TrackNATIONAL LAUGH TRACK The surprise companion to The National's April release First Two Pages of Frankenstein, Laugh Track is the band's most freewheeling, all hands on deck album in years. If Frankenstein represented a rebuilding of trust between group members after 20+ years together, the vibrant, exploratory Laugh Track is both the product of that faith and a new statement of intent. Reveling in the license to radically upend it's creative process,

Motions of Return

000 years earlier

has quietly painted a beatific masterpiece that veers from the whimsical to the wigged out

especially in the form of a roots-rock or country song

and what makes New Fragility such an accomplished

provided by the abbot Filippo Piccinelli in his work L'Ateneo dei Letterati Milanesi (Milan

who has since become a major rock producer (Cult

"[Acrimante's] sentimental and emotional disorder disrupts the personality of the other characters who revolve around him He messes them up

The Curse)

also known for his own fragmentary work under the pseudonym Other Joe

is a cathartic journey through the memories and imagination of the composer

and "Tain't Nice (To Talk Like That)"