The National announce new single ‘Eucalyptus’

nme.com:

The National will be releasing a new single, ‘Eucalyptus’, tomorrow (March 22).The track is set to the third single, after ‘New Order T-Shirt’ and ‘Tropic Morning News’, to be taken from the band’s upcoming album ‘First Two Pages Of Frankenstein’.

The album is scheduled to drop on April 28 via 4AD and will feature collaborations with Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens. ‘Eucalyptus’ might sound familiar to The National superfans, as the band previously played the song live last year on tour — check out footage below.Several other new songs have debuted in the same way, including ‘Tropic Morning News (Haversham)’ and Bon Iver collaboration ‘Weird Goodbyes’, as well as other as yet unreleased songs such as ‘Grease In Your Hair (Birdie)’, and ‘Bathwater (Mount Auburn)’.Speaking to NME about new music last year, The National’s guitarist Bryce Dessner said: “What I can say is that we’re at a high watermark in terms of our creativity as a band.

There’s a lot happening, and a lot of music. We’re allowing ourselves to dream about it, take risks, try things and give the songs time to develop.”Explaining that the new material featured traces of elements from their past records, he added: “The songs are vulnerable and direct like on ‘Boxer’, but with experimental moments like ‘Sleep Well Beast’ and raw moments like ‘Alligator’.

In a way, it’s the whole history of the band but with a new exploration in it. Some of them are our most accessible, others are more poetic with different arrangements.”The National will be returning to the UK and Ireland in September for a run of headline shows, with Soccer Mommy set to support.