Matt Berninger is not afraid to dig deep for his feelings. As the baritone anchor of the National, he has made a reputation for himself as an avatar of vulnerability, wit, quiet, usually, and a sense of intensity just below his calm exterior. But on “Inland Ocean,” the balmy third single from his debut solo album “Get Sunk,” to be released by May 30 via Book/Concord Records, Berninger sails onto even more personal waters adrift but tethered by self-reflection.
Co-written with longtime collaborator Walter Martin and produced by Sean O’Brien, “Inland Ocean” sounds like a conversation between distance and presence. The track has a floating sense, like looking out across a large body of water and understanding that it reveals just as much as it hides. The song is quietly ushered by a minimal arrangement and washed-out fuzzy textures, offering up Berninger’s voice front and center. And what a voice it is a raspy, expressive, and perfectly flawed voice.
Backing vocals by the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Ronboy lend the mix some ghostly warmth. Her harmonies support Berninger and shadow the edges of his words, turning the song into the bittersweet foil of a layered duet of memory and movement. The feeling is subtle but palpable, as if you yelled and heard someone whisper behind you before you turned around.
What differentiates “Inland Ocean” isn’t so much its palette as its emotional setting. This song is about floating in the space between. Inspired by Berninger’s recent transition from the sprawl of Los Angeles to the slower pulse of Connecticut, the song registers change without naming it otes of feeling that call echoes of the past and a present where the location might define your daily life and your inner life.
It has a slow burn, a delicately blurred photograph of a moment you can’t quite articulate but sense nonetheless. With the entire album just around the bend, this song offers a vivid window into the reflective waters Berninger wading through. With new members Ronboy and Walter Martin and an ever-widening pool of deft collaborators, “Get Sunk” is shaping into a subtle masterpiece grounded not in answers but in the hunt.
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