The Grand National

They chose their name because it was 'bland and means nothing'. For more and more people, The National's music is anything but.

Not every band gets ten pages in the New York Times. Not even Rihanna gets ten pages in the New York Times. But The National appear to get everything an artist could want without, well, wanting it, at least outwardly. OK so that's part of the appeal. But if modesty and a certain sort of introspective nature were benchmarks of talent it'd take a month to read one issue.

There's something very popular, something rings very true with many people about the Cincinnati band now based in Brooklyn. And there's a temptation to tag that interest under the new narcissism that's crept into much of modern living off the back of social media - narcissism being the apposite term although the negative qualities it connotes are a bit heavier than intended.

But if it were all about transferring sob stories from vinyl to your studio apartment, their success would not be so resounding, so massive. That NYT article is the tip of a huge iceberg. The band have toured some of the world's biggest festivals as well as occupying high spots on critic after critic's end of year best of lists. In short it goes deeper than that, and inevitably there's a certain sense of traditionalism to their work that makes it so completely fascinating.

A life is a polished thing in this century, a highly fussed-over object that brings as many earthly delights as spiritual lows. Whilst pointing out the obvious, The National seem to be a bunch of guys that recognise poverty comes in many different forms and all are worth raking over and combing through in a search for peace, solace and respite. They're also intelligent to recognise the inherent conflict that doing so will create.

And a band that seems so familiar with conflict is bound to be a band that strikes a chord in the hearts of millions, although their grace in the face of difficulties is an almost aspirational quality, and befits their apparently resoundingly sensible outlook. It's a kind of stoicism for the 21st century. It's apparent, in varying amounts, in all of their back catalogue, and will doubtless surface in their new album, Trouble Will Find Me, due out May 20th/21st.

Obviously this isn't the sort of philosophy practised by Diogenes and his buddies. and that outlook has changed markedly since the turn of the century. The early dot-com boom (which some of the band's members worked through whilst playing shows on New York's Lower East Side - hipster credentials complete) and more recent global economic events have seen to that.

But tensions necessarily create toughness, deepening of reserves of willpower and occasionally a more willing attitude to consider the whole picture. The best bit about The National is that not all of their characters fit that ideal mould.



A really good picture of Matt Berninger

Their stories are extolled knowingly, filled with fully drawn characters that have rolled with life's punches and avoid clichés with the contemporary toughness tightly defined. If class was a factor, their troupe are upwardly mobile in aspiration, yet spiritually unconvinced of their direction. Here is a world where actions cause concern and inaction makes for uneasy emotional truces and stasis, sometimes all inside one head.

In other words, they make for tremendous and accurate portrayals of contemporary living and it's no wonder that their fan base has grown so dramatically in the last part of the noughties. Their biggest hit to date, the simple, folksy Fake Empire, has been given real and imagined weight in both a US election campaign (the band are fully signed-up Democrats) and shows like Grey's Anatomy, and is a striking example of their biggest talents; an unassuming piano line ambling along to Matt Berninger's bar-room baritone, drums tiptoeing along before almost incidentally rolling into a gentle yet spine-tingling crescendo of percussion, brass and piano before drifting off just as quietly.

Only once have they tried for a sense of showmanship and on Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks the narrative feels almost forced; sharp lines poke through the story and the protrusions are strange to see. Otherwise the comments that seem commonplace in almost every 'new album' press story feel almost vital to the group's existence.

 And that's even before we get to their credentials. Impeccable, although you already knew that. Their first band was a Pavement tribute and their latest tour partners are Dave Longstreth's Dirty Projectors. They regularly play gigs for great causes (Dark Was The Night is the biggie although there are others) and they're politically 'tuned in' as aforementioned, lending their pulling power to worthy and powerful causes.

As with their craft, the accolades are worn lightly and their demeanour suggests a group of men focused on more personal levels of self-improvement, a journey they are making in public because they want to for more than just a single reason. Their tour diary Mistaken for Strangers, named after a song from Boxer, has recently been presented at Tribeca Festival and the highlights trailer shows shadows of the characters that haunt the band's songs, although there's no sense that you're hearing real tensions being played out. Indeed although it's almost obligatory to mention it when writing about the group, the fact the band has two sets of brothers surely gives certain ingredients their flavour.

I wrote this after being inspired by a short story by Truman Capote named The Headless Hawk, a slim tale portraying Vincent, a character of deftness with a self-deceiving heart who finally unravels in New York rain, burnt out and exhausted by an obsessive and inquisitive savant whom he sleeps with and makes his own.

Vincent feels like a character who could walk straight into a National song and considering the author who created him, I'd like to think that's a fair old compliment. But I can already see what the response would be, and that's what I like the most.

Pictures courtesy of ifthemusicsloudenough.com and chartattack.com