National, The: Alligator (Coloured Vinyl LP)On The National's third album and first for Beggars Banquet, Matt Berninger's potent baritone still intones about matters fraught and funny and sad, about record collections, missing persons and medium sized American hearts. But the record's not simply gothic or miserable. More like the plays of Tennessee Williams, it's full of peculiar intimacies and awkward grace. Alligator's heroes are reckless and possessed seducers, but they are apologetic ones.