History Music / TheNational

* BassoProfundo: Matt is generally a baritone, but sometimes he borders on this when he gets low enough on songs like "Demons", "Runaway", "The Rains of Castamere" and "Bloodbuzz Ohio".

%%* BadassBaritone: Matt Berninger owns this trope.

* CarefulWithThatAxe: Matt did this occasionally on their earlier albums. It's especially effective in "Slipping Husband", as it's a quiet song where Matt suddenly erupts towards the end with a truly jarring scream. "Abel" basically has Matt do this for it's duration. In addition, live performances of "Available", "Squalor Victoria", "Mr November", and "Graceless" also tend to feature a great deal of this.

** "Don't Swallow the Cap" also functions as a darker take on this type of song. The track's narrator is clearly in a terrible state of drunkenness, sadness, and disorientation, but he oscillates between denial and panic throughout the song. Similarly to "City Middle", it also references Tennessee Williams. In this case, it's title refers to the manner in which Williams died.

* BadassBaritone: Matt Berninger owns this trope.
* BaldOfAwesome: Scott, sort of.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Varies per album:
** ''The National'': 1-2.
** ''Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers'': 2-3, possibly even 5 for "Murder Me Rachel" if only for the batshit ending.
** ''Alligator'': 3, maxes at 4 for "Abel".
** ''Boxer'': 3.
** ''High Violet'': 2.
** ''Trouble Will Find Me'': 1, peaks at 2 for "Don't Swallow The Cap," "Graceless" and "Sea of Love" only.
** ''Sleep Well Beast'': Mostly 3-4, with ballads at 1-2, but "Turtleneck" leans toward 6.
** ''I Am Easy To Find'': 1, peaks at 2 for "Where Is Her Head" and "You Had Your Soul With You/"

* BadassBeard: Everyone in the band!

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Seems to be one of the RunningThemes of ''I Am Easy To Find'':

*** It's for this reason the vinyl releases sound entirely different; instruments recorded at different levels remained so, so guitars and drums that were overbearing on the CD releases became smaller side notes. Albums up to ''Alligator'' in particular benefit from their vinyl releases sincethey lack the distinguishing reverberated vocals found on later albums. Bizzarely enough, the vinyl versions don't ''really'' fix the clipping issues associated with the CD versions either, they just ''sound'' more dynamic because the levels are different.

* RockersSmashGuitars: Matt tends to break his microphones and other stage equipment because, well, he's [[AxCrazy friggin' insane]].

* {{Adorkable}}: Each band member, especially Matt and the Dessners, has their moments.

* SpokenWordInMusic: "Walk It Back" on ''Sleep Well Beast'' samples one of the staffers (reported to be Karl Rove, who denies being the speaker) of the UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush White House.

* "Rylan" is confirmed to be genderless.

** Also, water in "I Am Easy To Find". There's the wordless "Underwater" and "Her Father in the Pool", "underwater you're almost free" (Rylan),
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: In "Daughters of the Soho Riots".

* TriumphantReprise: The ending of "Slow Show" borrows a lyric from an earlier song titled "29 Years" ("You know ( dreamed about you for 29 years before i saw you"). However, whereas the original lyric was sung in a melancholic and weary fashion, the reprised version is considerably more emotive and hopeful sounding.

* AmbiguousGender: It's never explicitly stated if the Joe in "Sea of Love" is a man or a woman, since the name could go either way. The album's liner notes use "Joe" instead of "Jo", suggesting a man, but they also use "child" in place of boy or girl which keeps it ambiguous.

** ''Sleep Well Beast'' plays with this; it has some of their poppiest songs ever, but also some of their most heartbreaking lyrics.

They started out with a small underground following in 1999, producing mostly SoOkayItsAverage albums and [=EPs=], until their 2005 album, ''Alligator'' which turned them into critical darlings. From there, their albums continued to get better. In 2007, their album, ''Boxer'' was featured on many "Best of the Year" lists, and in 2010 their fifth album, ''High Violet'' won them further critical attention. The album has even been in competition with Music/ArcadeFire's ''The Suburbs'' and Music/BeachHouse's ''Teen Dream'' in year-end charts. In 2011 they provided a song featured in Portal 2 at the request of the developers and performed "[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire The Rains of Castamere]]" for the 2012 season of ''Series/GameOfThrones''. The golden run then continued in 2013 with the release of their sixth album ''Trouble Will Find Me.'' This one only continued their increasing popularity, and the band would go on a brief hiatus to produce side projects like EL VY, Pfarmers, and LNZNDRF, all with a more psychedelic bent. This experimentation would feed into their next album, ''Sleep Well Beast'', preceded by the surprisingly upbeat "The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness." They returned in 2019 with ''I Am Easy To Find,'' produced by director[[Film/TwentiethCenturyWomen Mike Mills.]]

* CallBack: Happens quite often considering Matt is the one and only lyric writer for the band, and how his lyrics are very self-referential. For example, "Slow Show" on ''Boxer'' references the title lyrics to "29 Years" all the way back on the first album.

They started out with a small underground following in 1999, producing mostly SoOkayItsAverage albums and [=EPs=], until their 2005 album, ''Alligator'' which turned them into critical darlings. From there, their albums continued to get better. In 2007, their album, ''Boxer'' was featured on many "Best of the Year" lists, and in 2010 their fifth album, ''High Violet'' won them further critical attention. The album has even been in competition with Music/ArcadeFire's ''The Suburbs'' and Music/BeachHouse's ''Teen Dream'' in year-end charts. In 2011 they provided a song featured in Portal 2 at the request of the developers and performed "[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire The Rains of Castamere]]" for the 2012 season of ''Series/GameOfThrones''. The golden run then continued in 2013 with the release of their sixth album ''Trouble Will Find Me.'' This one only continued their increasing popularity, and the band would go on a brief hiatus to produce side projects like EL VY, Pfarmers, and LNZNDRF, all with a more psychedelic bent. This experimentation would feed into their next album, ''Sleep Well Beast'', preceded by the surprisingly upbeat "The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness."