The National are five New York based friends from Ohio, who started making music in 1999. New album 'Alligator' highlights Matt Berninger's potent baritone as he intones about matters fraught, funny and sad, but the record is not simply gothic or miserablist - more like the plays of Tennessee Williams, it is full of peculiar intimacies and awkward grace.

They're stuck between the country and the city, but not in the suburban or exurban senses, their music reveals the parallels between small-town everybody-knows -everybody drama and big-city alienation.

Label
Beggars Banquet
Genre
Country LP
Secret Meeting
Karen
Lit Up
Looking For Astronauts
Daughters of the Soho Riots
Baby, We'll Be Fine
Friend of Mine
Val Jester
All the Wine
Abel
The Geese of Beverly Road
City Middle
Mr. November

RHYTHM