The National Lights The Dead Will Walk, Dear by: Kat Muscat Tue:13-Nov-07 Label: Bloodshake Year: 2007 WB rating 60 out of 100

We often overlook that which seems innocent; it’s natural, with so many scandals squabbling for our attention. This can be extended to music - even the casual listener is accustomed to blood being used as a metaphor for just about anything. Innocent is not bad, it’s just not very interesting. The Dead Will Walk, Dear is the debut album from The National Lights, the songwriting project of Jacob Thomas Berns. With the sounds of nearly every folk instrument you can think of performed by Chris Kiehne, and the ethereal voice of Sonya Cotton, their combined creation is recorded proof of why niceties like innocence are worthy of our attention.

The Dead Will Walk, Dear is an album that easily plays through twice the first time you throw it in the stereo. Firstly, because it is so concise – clocking in at just under half an hour – but also because Berns’ breathy, shy-boy voice, the simple riffs and chords accompanying him play in the back of your mind without ever being drawn to the forefront. Almost every track sounds like a love song. “Don’t make me say I’m sorry/cause in my heart I meant no harm” are not far from the lyrics of any, easily digestible radio noise. But listen to ‘Better for it, Kid’ again more carefully and it starts to seem more sinister. By the third play through, it becomes clear that most of Berns’ lyrics are meant entirely literally – that, and he’s got a completely different take on murder ballads to Nick Cave.

A collection of morbid little stories, The Dead Will Walk, Dear can be interpreted as following the wanderings of a serial killer, or the secrets usually kept by the rivers and swamps of the South. Berns draws most of his inspiration from ‘80s slasher films and Gothic literature, Flannery O’Connor especially, and makes this his own.

The instrumentation used to colour these dark tales is stripped back and traditional, the predominant sounds being banjo, piano, acoustic guitars, and lap-steel. Each melody is as sweet as the others, but as a whole, it seriously lacks stylistic diversity. The upbeat sounds of ‘Buried Treasure’ and ‘The Water is Wide’ are swallowed by the rest of the album which is steady, sombre, and contemplative. Due to the average song length of two or three minutes, the structure is stripped down, often to a pair of short verses. Strangely, this does not leave the listener with a sense of incompleteness. Something in the approach of the subject matter is subtly authoritative, and you accept whatever Berns has chosen to share.

The centrepiece of the album is undoubtedly ‘Swimming in the Swamp’, the penultimate track. There is a tension between Berns and Cotton, a switching of emphasis from one voice to the other – in previous songs the latter had merely shadowed the former. It also has the most directly violent imagery, which almost comes as a relief after so much delicacy and suggestion.

One of the main drawbacks of The Dead Will Walk, Dear is that the sound does not play off the subject matter. It rarely provides tension or release, preferring simply to tell the story. This makes it an easy album to let just wash over you, and then away. Apart from the obvious sincerity, there is little effort to hook the listener and keep them.
In addition, possibly a by-product of Berns’ well of inspiration, the songs independently lack weight. There is a sense of missing the reference, if you are not familiar with the ghost stories of the South.

Berns’ debut is certainly refined storytelling. However, it fails to be a strong album, as much as it is disconcerting and sweet. There is still a lot of room for development musically and in connecting with the audience. Despite this, The National Lights are an act to watch out for. It will definitely be worth waiting to see where Berns takes the project.