Due to phenomenal demand, The National have added a second London show at Alexandra Palace on Thursday 14th November.
The National – November 2013
Monday 11th O2 Apollo Manchester
Wednesday 13th Alexandra Palace London
Thursday 14th Alexandra Palace London
This follows the announcement that The National will release their sixth studio album ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ on 20th May. The new album follows 2010’s critical and commercial success High Violet andis the most self-assured collection of songs produced by The National in its 14-year career. In an interview with UK’s UNCUT Magazine, front man Matt Berninger described the songs as more “immediate and visceral” than their previous work. Trouble Will Find Me possesses a directness, a coherency and an approachability that suggests The National are at their most confident.
After a 22-month tour following the release of High Violet the band returned home. Regardless of plans to wait to record new music for another year or two, guitarist Aaron Dessner began working on sketches of new songs that the other members were too inspired by to not fully realize. Matt confesses, “For the past ten years we’d been chasing something, wanting to prove something. And this chase was about trying to disprove our own insecurities. After touring High Violet, I think we felt like we’d finally gotten there. Now we could relax—not in terms of our own expectations but we didn’t have to prove our identity any longer.”
The results are simultaneously breakthrough and oddly familiar, the culmination of an artistic journey that has led The National both to a new crest and, somehow, back to their beginnings—when, says Aaron, “our ideas would immediately click with each other. It’s free-wheeling again. The songs on one level are our most complex, and on another they’re our most simple and human. It just feels like we’ve embraced the chemistry we have.”
In advance of the release, the documentary Mistaken For Strangers will premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival as the festival opener on April 17th. The film, directed by Tom Berninger, follows The National on its biggest tour to date. Newbie roadie Tom (lead singer Matt Berninger’s younger brother) is a heavy metal and horror movie enthusiast, and can’t help but put his own spin on the experience. Inevitably, Tom’s moonlighting as an irreverent documentarian creates drama on the road. The film is a touching look at two very different brothers and an entertaining story of artistic aspiration.
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