The National shakes off its "sad sack" reputation

The National's first buzz album was called "Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers," and its breakthrough album, 2005's "Alligator," made a bunch of year-end best-ofs at least partly because of what music Web site Pitchfork Media described as the band's ability to inject "American anxiety with a somewhat European elegance." Entertainment Weekly suggested that "the twilit melodies and Matt Berninger's gossamer vocals will haunt your troubled dreams."

That line may be a bit misleading unless you think of Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave or Tom Waits as "ethereal" vocalists whose style is characterized by "unusual lightness and delicacy" (so much for dictionary definitions).

Berninger's detached, low-leaning baritone does have a similar gravitas (albeit less of the ruined/roughened edges) and a healthy portion of the National songbook does favor somber, occasionally self-pitying meditations on the dark side of romance.

Bad-mood music, perhaps?

For sure, there's some of that on the Brooklyn-based quintet's latest album, "Boxer," which has been widely praised, though some critics have noted how apparent it is that Berninger has been in a healthy romantic relationship since "Alligator."

"The songs about relationships are more about how to compromise, how to hold onto something good and how to find that, whereas 'Alligator' had songs about knowing something is gone or just pining over something that's gone. There's more bitterness, I think, on 'Alligator,' much less on 'Boxer' because of the fact that I've been in a relationship that's been good for a really long time," Berninger said.

"Funny, I never thought of our other records as being dark," he added. "I've always thought of it as a pretty healthy balance, a mixture of emotions and themes on all the records. I'm happy that that sort of 'sad sack/morose' tag that we've had hanging on us for a while is starting to fall off."

And, Berninger acknowledged, the often doleful timbre of his voice clearly colors perceptions of what he's singing about.

"Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits often are described as 'sad singers,' but those guys are also some of the funniest singers with an honest optimism," he said. "There is something in the register of my voice that paints it in a blue room, I guess."

All five band members — Berninger and two pairs of brothers, Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf — hail from Ohio.

The brother teams collaborate on the music, but the lyrics, often elusive and ambiguous, are all Berninger's.

"In terms of analysis, there are some parts of our own songs that I'm not sure what they're about. One of the nicest things is that people are trying to figure out exactly what something means, when the truth is, often their interpretations are as interesting, or sometimes more interesting, than whatever sparked it in the first place."