Mistaken For Strangers

I admit, that when I get "into" a band or an album, I can get a bit over the top. I probably listened to Caesars "Paper Tigers" twenty times one week a few months back, and did the same with the Silversun Pickups "Carnavas" a month or so after that.

Well, now my latest problem, if you could call it that, is with The National. I only discovered their CD "Alligator" about six months ago, and immediately recognized it as being something right up my alley. When I got an copy of The Boxer, their latest CD, it's hard to understate how much I loved and continue to love it.

What is great is that The National not only create distinctive music -- tight, rhythmic drumming behind great guitar, bass and the brooding deep voice of Matt Berninger that sounds like the best of Nick Cave and Ian McCullough -- but they add airtight lyrics on top of that.

Here is one of my favorite parts of Mistaken for Strangers, which is the second track on The Boxer:

You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends

when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights

arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under

oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over

surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wannna watch

another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

Good stuff.