The National have revealed that parts of their new album sound like “The Band and Air in the same room”.
Speaking in the new issue of Uncut (out on April 25), guitarist Aaron Dessner says: “On ‘Pink Rabbits’, part of the drum track sounds like it could be Levon Helm, but we layered in electronic snares, to give it a certain austerity, like The Band and Air in the same room.
“We were trying to create an aesthetic that would sound new to us: where in the past we might have used orchestrations, strings and winds, here we were using synthetic textures and bass pedals, in order to give it a little more pop sensibility.”
The group’s frontman Matt Berninger also explains the meaning behind many of the songs on the new album, Trouble Will Find Me, joking that the record is a set of “fun songs about death”.
The new issue of Uncut (dated June 2013) is out on Thursday (April 25).