The National’s Matt Berninger previews new solo album with melancholic single ‘Breaking Into Acting’ featuring Hand Habits

Matt Berninger has shared a new taste of his upcoming solo album ‘Get Sunk’, with the Hand Habits-featuring single ‘Breaking Into Action’. Check it out below.

• READ MORE: The National’s Matt Berninger: “It was sobering to realise how fragile I was”

The new record is set for release on May 30 through Book/Concord, and marks the second solo album from the National frontman, following on from his 2020 debut ‘Serpentine Prison’. Visit here to pre-order it.

So far, he’s already shared single ‘Bonnet of Pins’, and debuted some new material at a recent live show in Leeds.

Now, he’s back with the melancholic ‘Breaking Into Acting’, featuring Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy and written with ‘Get Sunk’ producer Sean O’Brien.

Exploring the faux nature of performing, the song sees the two sing: “Your mouth is always full of blood packets / You’re breaking into acting / I completely understand,” over a pensive acoustic guitar.

Reflecting on the track, Berninger has said: “The song is about being on stage and feeling like you’re acting. I write the script, but when I go to record or perform it, I turn into an actor. I love that, but it can get weird to turn on and off. It’s about forgetting you’re not that character. Meg Duffy of Hand Habits joined and turned it into a little duet. They made the song much more than a metaphor about me.”

Check out the song, and the music video directed by Hopper Mills, below.

‘Get Sunk’ is set to feature a combination of rich sonic landscapes and poignant lyrics, as well as a close look at the intricate complexities of human experience, per a press release. Alongside Duffy, it features contributions from Julia Laws (Ronboy), Kyle Resnick (The National, Beirut), Garret Lang, Booker T Jones and more.

As for the record as a whole, the tracklist was born out of “a long period of writer’s block and self-disgust” that Berninger overcame after 2020, and sees him hone in on themes of changing identity and self-worth. “Our hearts are like old wells filled with pennies and worms,” he explained. “I can’t resist going down to the bottom of mine to see what else is there. But sometimes you can get yourself stuck.”

It also grows from the world Berninger laid out on his debut solo album, and continues to explore how he came to be the person he is now.

“Berninger is an expert in what it feels like to lose all bravery, and ‘Get Sunk’ points to an undulating reflection in the water,” reads a new description. “It’s about realising that you are not yourself without a thousand others: parents, friends, siblings, spouses and exes, college roommates, childhood best friends, cousins, kids and even strangers.”

Speaking about going solo back in 2020, Berninger told NME: “Most of my songs are love songs to myself or that champion me. They’re cheerleading songs for my own soul. I’m writing things that I suspect Carin would like to say to me. You know, ‘I hope my daughter understands me’, ‘My mother will know this is about her’. They’re not just about me; they’re about the people that made me… me.”

Then, in September 2023, NME spoke to Berninger again, this time about his writing process and its interaction with his mental health. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said, “but I believe in the power of the belief in ghosts. It’s the same thing with God. I don’t really believe in it, but I believe in its power.”

As well as the new solo album, Berninger has set his sights on new music from The National, and told NME about the hopes of a new “punk rock inspired album” from the band.

“The guys send me rock songs all the time, but I can’t fake that. People can hear a fake rock song because it just sounds so pathetic and effortful. I’ve got to actually be in the zone and feeling it,” he told us.

“Everything just has to be organic with us. Thank god. I wouldn’t know how to start if I had to cook up a song from a strategic recipe perspective in terms of career arc or anything like that. Whatever’s going on, I have to write that.”

He also shed light on the status of the long-mooted sitcom he’s been working on with his brother Tom, titled Das Apes. “Das Apes is alive, and that’s all I can say,” he told NME in 2023. “There was nothing happening because of the writers strikes and stuff like that, but we’ll see. I’m not going to drown in projects like I was before, but that it is one of them that I really want to do and it might happen.”

In other news, Berninger will play a string of intimate solo shows in the UK, Europe and North America later this year. Head here to see a list of dates, and find any remaining tickets here.

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