It’s taken me a little while to go to The Nationals back catalogue since giving their most recent release Trouble Will Find Me the 2013 album of the year.

I really don’t know why its taken me over a year to go back and listen to their earlier works and now I have I feel guilty for not doing it sooner.

The National manage on every album to create these brooding works that are the epitome of what we talk about when we call tracks growers. The subtleties in most of their music allow Matt Berningers Baritone lyrics to drift into weird and poetic places that take several listens to decipher. But once those lyrics mixed with carefull instrumentation resonate with you they can latch on for good.

Some do it quicker than others and Start A War had me within the first thirty seconds. I would highly recommend all of their work especially The albums Boxer and Trouble will Find me as they have the strongest effect on me: