Matt Berninger returns with his sophomore album, Get Sunk, stepping confidently outside the shadows of The National to deliver a deeply introspective journey wrapped in lush, nuanced production.

Berninger’s Get Sunk is the kind of record that wraps around your head like a wet towel in a motel sauna. It’s humid, heavy, mildly claustrophobic, and somehow still comforting in its gloom. If you came here expecting a radical reinvention of the man who helped define The National’s brand of elegant dread—surprise, you will absolutely not find that. What you do get is a quieter spiral. Less about heartbreak as cinematic tragedy, more about the long, slow ache of sticking around long after the credits have rolled.

photo by Chantal Anderson

The production—handled by Sean O’Brien, who co-wrote much of the album—feels deliberately low to the ground. These are wine-stained voicemails at 1 a.m. Backed by a cast of tasteful indie illuminati (Meg Duffy, Walter Martin, Harrison Whitford, Ronboy and even Booker T. Jones), Berninger constructs a dense but breathable atmosphere. There’s room for the arrangements to sprawl, but they never lose shape.

Lyrically, this is Berninger in classic form—talking to ghosts. The writing flirts with the surreal but always folds back into something deeply personal. There’s a tension between composure and collapse that defines the record. He’s resigned, but still fighting to describe the water as he sinks into it.

And that’s where the album lives: in the sink. Not the plummet, not the glorious free-fall—but the slow descent into whatever is just beneath your reach. The arrangements are warm and sometimes lush, but they carry the weight of regret. Even when a melody blooms, it feels haunted. The guitars are never sharp; they shimmer like a mirage. Drums stay soft, heartbeat-level. The bass hums like a fridge you forgot to clean out.

The album spans ten tracks, but these are the ones that struck me the most—they’re where the heart of Get Sunk really comes into focus. Berninger opens Get Sunk with “Inland Ocean”, a gentle tide of a song that immediately sets the tone: subdued, tender, almost hypnotic. His vocals slide in like a breeze through linen curtains—barely there, but unmistakably present. The melody sways with a soft pop undertow, never overwhelming, just enough to pull you in. Lyrically, he stays in his wheelhouse—wistful, vaguely romantic, a little dazed—but it works. The mood does most of the talking.

Then comes “No Love”, and the shift is subtle but significant. This is as confident as the album gets. The indie pop sensibility kicks up, with a cleaner groove and an arrangement that breathes more actively. The duet in the chorus introduces just enough contrast to give it a lift—like a crack in the cloud cover. Berninger’s delivery remains cool, but the energy underneath carries more urgency.

“Frozen Oranges” dips back into the melancholia—thick, syrupy, beautiful. The rhythm is restrained but angular enough to keep it from dragging. It leans on keys, which shimmer rather than sparkle. Berninger sounds drained, and that’s the point.

On “Nowhere Special”, things take an unexpected turn. The tempo shifts up, the vocals fall down into a near-mutter, and the beat rides this low-level pulse that gets under your skin. There’s even a moment that brushes up against spoken word—closer to a recitation than a verse. The track walks the line between intimacy and disorientation.

“Little By Little” reins things back into more familiar territory. Slow pacing, polished guitar tones, a drum pattern that might as well be wearing loafers. But there’s a cinematic tension to it. It’s Berninger at his most composed.

“Silver Jeep” is the lullaby moment. There’s a comfort here that doesn’t feel forced—just breathy horns, simple chords, and the sense that everyone in the studio took one collective exhale. It’s warm, almost therapeutic.

The closing track, “Times Of Difficulty”, brings the whole album to a soft landing. The structure is loose, the pacing generous. Berninger barely raises his voice—he just lets the atmosphere settle. It’s the perfect fade-out, a slow drift into the final crackle of vinyl.

Still, the album does wander. A few tracks bleed into each other—less from a lack of identity and more from Berninger’s commitment to the haze. That might be the point, but it creates a second half that’s more ambient than arresting.

Get Sunk doesn’t reinvent Berninger. It doesn’t shake the foundations. But it deepens the grooves he’s been digging for decades. It’s a record about erosion—how we chip away at ourselves and each other until all that’s left is soft, strange tenderness.

Altogether, these tracks form a quiet but cohesive statement. Get Sunk works less like a narrative arc and more like a mood board—each song a vignette of vulnerability, gently stitched together with restraint and nuance. No one’s swinging for the fences here. Berninger and company are content to live inside the slow unraveling. And somehow, it makes for one of the most quietly captivating albums of the year.

A full-scale tour in support of Get Sunk kicks off this August.

August 22 – Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street 

August 23 – Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street *SOLD OUT

August 25 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3 Galvanizers

August 26 – Manchester, UK – Albert Hall

August 27 – London, UK – Troxy

August 29 – Nr Tolland Royal, Wiltshire, UK – End Of The Road Festival

August 31 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenburg *SOLD OUT

September 1 – Antwerp, Belgium – OLT Rivierenhof *SOLD OUT

September 2 – Paris, France – Elysee Montmartre

September 4 – Berlin, Germany – Huxleys

September 5 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega

September 6 – Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller Music Hall

September 8 – Hamburg, Germany – Große Freiheit 36

September 9 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenburg

September 10 – Antwerp, Belgium – OLT Rivierenhof *SOLD OUT

September 12 – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal

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