“There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall,” declared writer Cyril Connolly in 1938. The National would be sure to disagree. When the US five-piece came to the end of a grueling 22-month world tour following their critically acclaimed fifth album, High Violet, guitarist Aaron Dessner returned home to Brooklyn to his partner and newborn daughter.

The infant girl’s fitfulness threw the already frazzled musician into a more or less sustained fugue state, keeping him up at night and zombified during the day. Fortunately, the band’s studio is situated right in Aaron’s own backyard. Punch-drunk from sleeplessness, he amused himself writing musical fragments, which he then sent over to vocalist and main lyricist Matt Berninger.
It was a brand new way for The National to work. “He’d be so tired while he was playing his guitar and working on ideas that he wouldn’t intellectualise anything,” says the band’s singer of the genesis of Trouble Will Find Me. “In the past, he and [Aaron’s twin brother] Bryce would be reluctant to send me things that weren’t in their opinion musically interesting – which I respected, but often those would be hard for me to connect to emotionally. This time around, they sent me sketch after sketch that immediately got me on a visceral level.”
The resulting 13 tracks don’t find The National making any giant creative leap forward. Rather they’ve produced a seriously consistent album – self-produced but mixed by Peter Katis – that plays to all of their strengths. Slightly less ornate than High Violet, it is just as artfully intense. In short, The National have always been an ‘album band’, and from start to finish Trouble Will Find Me effortlessly grooves along, skirting the sound of despair without ever quite succumbing to it.
The tone is set with album opener, ‘I Should Live In Salt’, a mournful song about two people torn apart by their differences. “Don’t make me read your mind/ You should know me better than that,” Berninger sings (apparently to his brother), his vocal soaring above his usual baritone. “It takes me too much time/ You should know me better than that.”
Musically the pace shifts from dreamily melodic through menacingly haunting to fast-paced and urgent, sometimes in the same song (‘Graceless’). It’s all underpinned by the unpredictable rhythms of Bryan Devendorf. One of the best drummers in contemporary rock, his sound is highly distinctive – witness the addictive snarebeat on the brilliant ‘Humiliation’: “If I die this instant/ Taken from a distance/ They will probably list it down/ Among other things around town.”
Berninger’s lyrics are more memorable and less oblique than usual, littered with vivid and instantly gratifying couplets. On the nuanced, deeply textured and weirdly danceable ‘Demons’, he sings, “Bats and buzzards in the sky/ Alligators in the sewers/ I don’t even wonder why/ I hide among the younger viewers.”
The title is lifted from the brooding ‘Sea Of Love’ (“If I stay here trouble will find me/ If I stay here I’ll never leave”). While they occasionally slip into sentimentality (‘I Need My Girl’, ‘Pink Rabbits’), more often than not it works. The slow and shimmering ‘Fireproof’ is one of the subtler standouts. Berninger sings to Jennifer – this album’s Karen – on a song reminiscent of Boxer’s ‘Guest Room’: “Jennifer, you are not the only reason/ My head is boiling and my hands are freezing/ Jennifer, you are not the only one to sit awake/ Until the wild feelings leave you/ You’re fireproof.”
He sings to Jennifer again at the tear-jerking crescendo of ‘This Is The Last Time’: “Jenny I am in trouble/ Can’t get these thoughts out of me/ Jenny, I’m seeing double/ I know this changes everything.” The uplifting backing vocal sticks like a burr: “It takes a lot of pain to pick me up/ It takes a lot of rain in the cup.”
Over their 14-year career, The National have gradually ascended from minor cult act to festival headlining indie darlings without sacrificing an ounce of artistic integrity. They’re now pretty much at the same stage REM were at in the early ‘90s. Trouble Will Find Me isn’t quite The National’s equivalent of Automatic For The People – it’s a touch too doomy for that – but rather is another solid stepping stone towards near inevitable stadium-filling hugeness. While we wait for that to happen, this superb album will more than do to keep us satisfied.

Key Track: ‘Fireproof’