Product Description

The National's debut for Beggars Banquet Records boasts eloquent production and some of frontman Matt Berninger's finest songs. The Brooklyn band's sound includes elements of folkand swirling indie rock, with Berninger's literate, emotivetunes drawing heavily on the tradition of melancholic singer/songwriters. On "Daughters of the Soho Riots", Berninger'sbaritone croon recalls Gordon Lightfoot, yet his lyrics areincisive, confessional, and decidedly contemporary. The combination of surreal imagery and genuine pathos in "Baby, We'll Be Fine" (expressed in the song's repeated refrain) is also representative of Berninger's craft.
Two pairs of brothers--Aaron and Bryce Dessner (guitars) and Scott and Bryan Devendorf (bass and drums, respectively)--keep things alternately chiming, churning, and appropriately atmospheric. The startling relationship sketch "Karen", for example, rides a light rock pulse dominated by piano and augmented by strings, making it one of the album's shining moments. "All the Wine" turns Berninger's usually dark self-exploration on its head with its semi-ironic self-aggrandisement. ALLIGATOR's 13 tracks testify to the National's standing as one of the moredistinctive and absorbing bands around.

Track Listing

1. Secret Meeting
2. Karen
3. Lit Up
4. Looking For Astronauts
5. Daughters of the Soho Riots
6. Baby, We'll Be Fine
7. Friend Of Mine
8. Val Jester
9. All The Wine
10. Abel
11. The Geese of Beverly Road
12. City Middle
13. Mr November

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1787 in Music
• Released on: 2005-04-11
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
On their third recording, the National strikes a delicate balance between light and dark, fast and slow, American and British. While their sound is undeniably tinged with darkness, it isn't gloomy or depressing. This impression is mostly due to Matt Berninger's deep baritone, which brings to mind such sensitive, but manly Brit vocalists as Scott Walker and Stuart Staples of the Tindersticks. The National, however, are American. Formed in Brooklyn in 1999, the quintet hails from Cincinatti and doesn't sound much like a New York Band (Interpol, the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc.). Instead, they could be Midwestern or even Canadian in the way they combine alt-country, chamber-pop, and post-punk angst, like Toronto's Royal City or Montreal's Arcade Fire. Often compared to Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits, the National's music is actually faster-paced and has a lighter, almost jaunty touch. In other words: they rock. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

One of the best albums in the last 10 years.
If you like guitar music and have an ounce of emotion, you must listen to this record. Enough said.

Waiting for the click
The National operate at the americana end of indie, and they do what they do very well: the sound of chiming guitars, low key rock riffing, very restrained, very considered, and for sure these songs will grow on you if you'll let them. It's good nutritious, wholegrain stuff. But I'm not going to find myself singing along any time soon.

Lyrically enigmatic and resisting straightforward interpretation, these songs allow listeners to project their own meanings onto them, and I suspect that for many, that's part of the appeal. The invincibility of youth, madness and intoxication are never far away, but neither is the sense of dislocation or the potential for total breakdown.

Best songs for me were 'Secret Meeting' 'Daughters of the SoHo Riots' and 'The Geese of Beverly Road', but really this is an album which is cut from a single piece of cloth.

For those who like to think, while they rock
The National should be the standard bearers of literate, expansive rock. Forget Arcade Fire.
The members' years spent in unglamorous jobs before starting the band mean that their music sounds informed by real life, they don't exist in the rock n roll vacuum that many bands seem to inhabit. You'll hear (frequently unpleasant) things in their lyrics that you can actually recognise from your life. Like their indie forefathers The Smiths and The Replacements, The National make heros of 'losers'; so in 'Mr. November' you get a Biff Loman-like, coulda been a contender, in 'Friend of Mine' the buttoned down, pent up office drone they return to frequently on recent album Boxer.
The music here is diverse, with the dark orchestral pop, dusky Springsteen-esque Americana and widescreen rockers equally convincing. All are given emotional weight by Matt Berninger's soulful baritone.
Basically every track here is great, and this is the best place to start if you want to check out The National. Which if you haven't you should do immediately.