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Jun 5, 2025The overarching takeaway from Get Sunk, at least for me, is a reminder that few musicians can write a better sad sack meditation.
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Jun 3, 2025The songs offer catharsis to listeners, yes, but they also serve as a kind of therapy for the songwriter, who mines his emotional depths to retrieve them, as he does so powerfully.
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May 30, 2025There is still room for what feels like his natural habitat - the wistful ‘Frozen Oranges’ is classic, reflective Berninger - but in the main, this is the sound of him really beginning to stretch his legs as a solo artist.
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May 29, 2025Berninger's incisive turns of phrase and refusal to isolate the bitter and sweet are the governing forces throughout the record, even on songs like the jaunty "Junk," a defeated love song that imagines flowers sprouting through his own grave in Indiana.
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UncutMay 29, 2025Uncharacteristic moves brings an intriguing dimension to Berninger's inward-peering persona. [Jul 2025, p.26]
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MojoMay 29, 2025While there are shades of Berninger’s day band in the propulsive Nowhere Special, for the most part it’s a more laid-back affair in the stylistic vein of R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People, or a country-tinged The Blue Nile. [Jul 2025, p.86]
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May 29, 2025It may not be up there with the best of The National, but Get Sunk is definitely a new avenue for Berninger to explore. That closing choral shout of “Get sunk! Get drunk!” on the final track Times Of Difficulty feels both playful and emotional, as the best of Berninger’s work can do.
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May 29, 2025Get Sunk is a return to the energy of early National. The driving, New Order-indebted single Bonnet Of Pins is a case in point, all vivid and surreal wordplay delivered deadpan till pent-up frustrations burst through. [Jun 2025, p.103]
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Jun 5, 2025Get Sunk is not a flawless affair – it sometimes still feels a little torn between emotional poignancy and comfortable adult defeatism, and some moments almost demand a more aggressive, forlorn brevity. But Berninger’s second solo effort is a rich and satisfying listen, evading the generic bland arrogance of The National’s low points.
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Jun 17, 2025Get Sunk is an uneven album. When it succeeds on songs like “Silver Jeep,” “Bonnet of Pins,” and “Nowhere Special” the results are sublime. When it doesn’t, it comes across as trite or other criticisms leveled at sad dad-rock bands.
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Jun 3, 2025It would have been fascinating to see him apply those gifts more fully to writing about life as he searches for peace in middle age and refinds his voice after falling silent. Instead, Get Sunk feels like a missed opportunity.
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May 30, 2025On Get Sunk, he continues to work the same tastefully tortured alt-rock his main band has always done so well, channeling his most microscopically observed thoughts, pains, hopes, desires, and worries into lovely, lonely tunes like the gentle rocker “Bonnet of Pins,” the orchestral folk tune “Breaking Into Acting,” and the jazz-inflected “Silver Jeep.”