“New Order T-Shirt” by The National

"New Order T-Shirt" turns up on First Two Pages of Frankenstein, the National's ninth album, out on 4AD in 2023. Matt Berninger wrote the lyrics and shares the music credit with Aaron Dessner, and the band produced the whole record themselves at Long Pond, a studio in upstate New York.

Getting there took a while. With their touring wiped out by the pandemic after I Am Easy to Find, the members drifted into their own projects: Berninger made the solo album Serpentine Prison, Aaron Dessner produced a pair of Taylor Swift records and another Big Red Machine album with Justin Vernon, and Bryce Dessner worked on film scores in France. Then Berninger hit a dark stretch where neither words nor melodies would come, which makes every line on this record feel hard-won.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.