Big in Europe, National works on American appeal
Matt Berninger is of two minds about the ongoing fall tour for his band, the National. Berninger is pleased to be done with summer, the season of festival shows with outdoor settings, midday start times, and huge crowds. He's excited to be back playing late-night gigs in clubs, where he and his four bandmates are most comfortable. He's also glad to look out into those clubs and see the swelling audiences that have come with the success of the National's third full-length CD, ''Alligator."
But the singer is also ready to start writing new songs, something he knows no one in the band has ever been able to do on the road. And with the National's tour scheduled to last until around Veteran's Day, Berninger is ever mindful of the fact that he's got a long wait ahead.
''We probably won't be able to really sit down and start writing until the middle of November," says Berninger, who hits T.T. the Bear's tonight with the National. ''I'm really anxious and a little frustrated about that.'
That said, Berninger and the rest of his Brooklyn, N.Y.-based band recognize that, much as it may be in their nature to be moving toward their next CD (the band's produced three full-lengths and an EP over the past four years), their best career move at the moment is to stay out on the trail promoting ''Alligator."
Released in April, the record, the band's first for the vaunted indie label Beggars Banquet, has made the National one of this year's darlings of the rock underground. The band, which sounds in many ways like an Americana-tinged Tindersticks or a more soulful, rocked-up Willard Grant Conspiracy, has already won a significant European following. And while the task of audience building is always more difficult stateside, where commercial radio can be nearly impossible to crack, the National has managed to become a current fave of the indie rock press and to win fans through college radio.
That's brought listeners into the clubs, where the band's energetic live sets have gotten fans talking, further spreading the word. And that, Berninger and his bandmates know, is what will make it easier to sell the next record -- once they get a chance to write and record it.
For now, their current release certainly offers enough variety to keep band and fans engaged. Like two of its predecessors, the 2003 full-length ''Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers" and last year's ''Cherry Tree" EP, ''Alligator" presents itself on first listen as a mostly atmospheric record. It takes that feel from songs like the opener, ''Secret Meeting," which echoes not quite quietly enough for comfort, like a half-heard conversation at the far end of a long corridor, and ''Geese of Beverly Road," in which chiming guitar branches off from the melody and heads down a path to who knows where.
But on repeated listens, one starts to hear the harder rocking songs. The-Pixies-meet-Joy-Division ''Abel," for instance. And the closer, ''Mr. November," which puts a distinctly American touch on a sound that is, in essence, that of late-'80s Nick Cave.
It's probably only logical that ''Alligator" reveals itself in such a backward manner. The songs relying on pounding drums and searing guitars manifest themselves only after those that draw their power from electric piano, which nudges between jangly guitar and strings brushing up against the edge of arrangements. As Berninger notes, the National's approach to songwriting boils down to a pursuit of the unusual. Band members, who write together, piecing together bits of melody and rhythm with lyrics until they find something that feels like a whole, are always seeking ways to complicate their compositions.
''You start out with something basic, and then add to it, and then pull away from it, and then cut it in half, and stick the end on the front, and put the middle on a different song," he says. ''That's always been the way we work. Because the times when we've sat down, and there was just a song that was straightforward . . . there's something about it that's boring.
''We're not the most innovative band. We're no Radiohead. But the thing we try to do most is not bore ourselves. I guess you could say that's our tombstone: We tried not to bore ourselves."
The National plays T.T. the Bear’s Place tonight. Tickets $10. Call617-492-2327. 