After another dreadfully monotonous day of assembling glasses for 8 hours, I routinely flipped on XMU channel 26 on Sirius Satellite Radio to hear the groggy and pleasingly apathetic voices of Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner of The National.
For this week only, these guys will be hosting an hour-long show at 5 p.m. with replays at 11 p.m. everyday. They hand pick tracks off of their latest album High Violet as well as goodies from older stuff. Digging a little deeper, Berninger and Dessner also rotate some music that influenced their slowly but surely rise to indie rock fame.
It’s an intimate little program, like a high-tech version of MTV Unplugged. My favorite part of today’s show was the history behind ‘Abel’ off of their 2005 album Alligator. Berninger explained the band’s frustration after three album releases and still no attention from the masses.
We joke about this song being the point when we were sort of knocking on the door…
‘Abel’ echos the quiet-noisiness that The Pixies so well engineered, and this is entirely intentional. Berninger and Dessner admitted they tried to emulate The Pixies with this one with the chorus kick off and that simultaneously low and loud sound.
Good job, boys… I think it worked.
Right when Cleveland thought there was no hope left, these Brooklyn boys are here to represent Ohio where The National got its start. They’ve got heart, a lot of talent, and a great taste in music.
Listen for yourself this week on XMU, but for now check out these tracks from the National:
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