The National’s latest record, ‘Rome,’ is a 21-song set recorded live this summer at the Italian capital. Upon the album’s arrival, explore the band’s musical journey with five great tracks.

By Gary Moskowitz | GRAMMYs / Dec 13, 2024

For more than two decades, American rock band The National has been fine-tuning their signature, somber sound. Their delicate, sensitive anthems consistently explore relatable moments of sadness, grief, melancholy, anxiety, and love.  

Vocalist Matt Berninger delivers moody, middle-aged confessions in a signature, un-rushed baritone voice that can often sound like Leonard Cohen mixed with Ian Curtis of Joy Division. Berninger has referred to singer-songwriter Elliott Smith as an inspiration, and is a fan of Tom Waits, Cat Power, The Pixies, and Pavement. The results of those aural inspirations were once dubbed “intelligent art rock.”

“None of us think of our band as a depressing band. We know that term is used, but the reaction to our music is the opposite. I feel myself relieved of sorrow and depression and anxiety while I write about stuff,” Berninger told an interviewer. “I feel like I know myself better for having thought about all this stuff and trying to make something out of it all.”

“I think the fact that Matt doesn’t play an instrument means he finds ways with the rhythms of his words which are actually really interesting,” bandmate Aaron Dessner told The Independent last Fall. “In a lot of his vocal melodies, it’s like a polyrhythm…. I think he pulls things out of musical phrases and finds ways to do it with his voice.”

Berninger is backed by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner on guitar, piano, and keyboards, and Bryan and Scott Devendorf on drums and bass, respectively. Trombonist Ben Lanz and trumpeter Kyle Resnick — of the band Beirut — join the band on tours. Bandmates met each other growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, before relocating to Brooklyn in 1998, and emerged in 1999 with a unique, adult alternative take on indie rock.

The band’s “sad dad” sound — spread across ten studio albums, six live albums, and two EPs — now appeals to more than four million monthly listeners on Spotify. The band won their first and only GRAMMY Award in 2018, but has been nominated for three (as well as several other awards);  their songs have been certified as silver, gold, and platinum in the U.S. and abroad.

In 2008, President Barack Obama released a “Signs of Hope and Change” campaign video featuring an instrumental version of the group’s “Fake Empire.” They’ve since collaborated with Taylor Swift, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, and Phoebe Bridgers, and played major festivals such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, Pitchfork, and Glastonbury. 

The National’s forthcoming album, Rome, features 21 songs recorded live this summer in Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone. Out Dec. 13 on the 4AD label, the double album is intended to be a definitive live document of the band’s sound. The album was mixed by GRAMMY-winning producer and longtime collaborator Peter Katis, and aims to capture the energy of the band’s live show.

Rome opens with “Runaway,” moves through songs like “New Order T-Shirt” and “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” then later pairs “Humiliation” from the critically acclaimed 2013 album Trouble Will Find Me with “Murder Me Rachael” from the 2003 album Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers. The band then works their way through songs like “Fake Empire” and “Mr. November” before ending the performance with popular show-closer “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks,” from the 2010 album High Violet.

Here are five essential songs from The National, live versions of which appear on the new album Rome.

“Fake Empire” (2007)

From The National’s 2007 album Boxer, the song opens with a signature melodic piano riff and closes with anthemic brass lines. Hedonism and escapism are the topics at hand: since life’s everyday demands are too difficult for us to really care about America’s political climate, we are all half-awake in a “fake empire,” too busy or unaware to notice. 

“Conceptually I said I would love to write a song that was based on a certain polyrhythm, the four-over-three pattern, which is what you hear in the piano,” Bryce Dessner told SFGATE. “It’s something I, personally, have never heard in rock music. What’s interesting is the song sounds like it’s in four, but it’s in three. The harmonies and the way I’m playing the piano music are actually incredibly simple, sort of like ‘Chopsticks’ simple, with this really weird rhythm.”

“Bloodbuzz Ohio” (2010)

Written by bandmates Aaron Dessner and Matt Berninger along with Padma Newsome for the album High Violet, the song seems to be about a character drinking away memories of their home state of Ohio. There’s also something to do with money: Rolling Stone wrote that the brilliant clincher moment in the lyrics is when Berninger sings “I still owe money, to the money, to the money I owe.”

The song was certified gold in Canada, and Pitchfork included it in their 200 Best Songs of the 2010s. One music journalist at the time wrote that the song “towers and pulsates, pumping a flow of orchestration that is the lifeblood of High Violet.

“England” (2010)

Considered a breakup song set against the backdrop of London, “England” was released alongside “Bloodbuzz Ohio” on 2010’s High Violet. 

Pitchfork’s review of the album aptly described the band as less “men’s magazine rock,” that is “music chiefly interested in the complications of being a stable person expected to own certain things and dress certain ways.”

Those themes were certainly resonant as TIME, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice all put High Violet in their year-end lists of best albums that year.

“New Order T-Shirt” (2023)

Fans speculated that the song was about the band celebrating itself and its fans, a failed relationship, an ode to Beninger’s wife, or just a generic love story. Their label, 4AD, said it was a warmly hypnotic track full of brightly detailed memories and heavy-hearted resolution. 

“There’s a simplicity to ‘New Order T-Shirt’ that reminds me of our earlier records, but with the full maturity and experience we have now,” Aaron Dessner said at the time of the release. “It feels like a really important song for the future of our band.” 

“New Order T-Shirt” was released on 2023’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein, the band’s ninth studio album, which received mixed reviews at the time but landed Berninger an interview with David Letterman.

“The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” (2017)

Tension and release is fundamental to music, and the propulsive percussion, repetitive piano riffs and abrupt breaks on “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” is evidence of just that.  Dessner’s recurring angular guitar riff almost seems as if it’s been borrowed from another song, but lends necessary depth. “While many of their songs, records, and even the trajectory of their nearly 20-year career could be described as a slow build, now they’re not wasting any time,” Pitchfork wrote of this track from Sleep Well Beast. 

The song charted in the U.S. and Europe, and was featured in the EA Sports video game “FIFA 18” soundtrack alongside artists like Run The Jewels and Lorde.

This song appeared on the band’s seventh album, which Berninger described as “very dark” compared to previous releases. It became another Obama favorite that year.