Alligator

The National are stuck somewhere in the emotional recesses of life, the characters in their songs adrift on roads both literal and metaphorical. 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. The Brooklyn (via Cincinnati) quintet engage with their American anxiety with a somewhat European elegance, and Alligator-- their third album and first for Beggars Banquet-- finds them pushing the tempos and trying on bigger shoes without losing the stately sense of pacing and dour melody that made their first two albums so pleasing.

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