In the closing chapter of Aldous Huxley's futurist freak show Brave New World, John, the enlightened outsider, retreats from civilization in a fit of shame to an isolated mountain cabin. Mortified by his own lusts, John resigns himself to a future of self- immolation, lacerating himself with a cat-o-nine tails every time he experiences a pleasurable urge. So notorious is his asceticism that crowds soon flock upward from the sin-ridden city to watch him pitifully flog and castigate himself.

Three songs into the self-titled debut from the National, Matt Berninger — himself an outsider and something of an obsessive — spits the lyric: "I hope you don't remember me…I don't want to know what you're thinking/ I'm looking out the window, I'm sitting here just fucking drinking." It's a bracing moment, one steeped in despair. It's the sad confession of a man too sober to forget his mistakes but too drunk to summon anything other than self-loathing.

The National is full of moments like these: Lovers are described as nightingales, workers are described as crows. More than anything else, the record conjures the image of a man alone at a table inside a dark cabin, half-empty bottle next to him, letter full… read more »