The National share a somber new ballad, Carin at the Liquor Store

Tugging at our heart strings yet again, The National have today shared their latest preview from their much anticipated forthcoming album Sleep Well Beast. The new track is titled Carin at the Liquor Store, and it’s without a shadow of doubt the best of the three album previews thus far. Having already shared The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness and Guilty Party, this new song emotionally feels and sounds like a throwback to what we heard on their incredible 2013 record Trouble Will Find Me. Through a warm, moody piano piece, an uplifting sonic guitar and frontman Matt Berninger preaching heart ache, Berninger paints the picture - “I was a worm, I was a creature, I get on the ground the second I'd see you. You cannot command your love. I wasn't a catch, I wasn't a keeper, I was walking around like I was the one who found dead John Cheever. Hand in glove.” Capturing the heart ache, he confesses in the chorus “So blame it on me, I really don't care. It's a foregone conclusion.” Carin at the Liquor Store is a timely reminder that possibly no one else quite captures emotion through music better than The National.

In an interview in 2016 with Rolling Stone, Berninger stated that the band’s new record was “really dark”. “I’m going very dark with the new National record, which is a place I love to go,” he said. “People have always described our music as dark and say it goes very melancholy, sombre places. They haven’t heard anything yet! This next thing is crazy.” Lyrically, Carin at the Liquor Store matches everything Berninger has stated about the forthcoming release. “It’s about marriage, and it’s about marriages falling apart,” he says on the single. “I’m happily married, and but it’s hard, marriage is hard and my wife and I are writing the lyrics together about our own struggles and it’s difficult to write, but it’s saving my marriage. Not saving my marriage, my marriage is healthy, but it’s good for everything! And so it’s gonna be a strange record, and I’m crazy about it.” Putting two and two together, take the use of Carin (Matt Berninger’s wife) in the song title, as point in case to this being a deeply personal number for Matt. “Carin at the liquor store, I can't wait to see you, I'm walking around like I was the one who found dead John Cheever. In the house of love”.

The National's new record Sleep Well Beast is due for release on September 8th.

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