The National-Lit Up

I think in the face of all this CYHSY/Wolf Parade craze The National is really one of the more underrated bands from 2005. Alligator is a great indie pop/rock record with plenty of similarities to classic indie bands as well as plenty of new and improved influences. This is what I imagine Interpol and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's child would sound like on a Monday morning, forced to get up hours early for a school day if it kept its optimism and those crazy wonderful guitars. In fact, their repetition of "bad blood" kind of reminds me a lot of that "young blood" thing. But more likely, that's because the two bands have been tourmates and one either loves and/or hate one and/or the other.

Did that make sense at all? It's probably the rush of those aching riffs and that dusty, dark but hyper in the most fitting way possible instruments and the wonderful thumping of the drums messing with my mind. With that class-A indie rock exhibit-A type chorus and vaguely uneasy lyrics, those constant soars and flashes proving just how talented and creative these guys can be without resorting to the Clap Hands hype to back up anything at all.

...Kind of ironic, isn't it, that while CYHSY opened for The National on tour, it seems like a helluva lot more people are familiar with them than The National?