Even in a slow sales week, there are typically more flashy acts than the National bowing at No. 3 on the U.S. pop chart. But that's precisely where Brooklyn's heroes entered the tally with "High Violet," landing between Lady Antebellum and the soundtrack to "Iron Man 2." 

The band's steady sales growth has afforded the occasional splurge -- a pop-up shop in New York, or the trumpet and trombone players who joined the band at the Wiltern on Friday  -- but by and large, the National has ascended with modesty. Though the group performs with few accouterments, save for sparingly used disco balls nestled behind the drum kit, and offers little stage banter, a newcomer could be forgiven for wondering why such a seemingly introspective indie band is crashing the Billboard charts. 

Yet there's high drama in the music of the National. The characters that populate Matt Berninger's lyrics used to be "carried in the arms of cheerleaders" and are now paranoid parents who are increasingly becoming "afraid of everyone." The National continues to hone rather than necessarily expand its craft on "High Violet," but Berninger, who cradled the microphone on "Mistaken for Strangers" as though he were holding on for dear life, can turn the band's exploration of adult relationships into grand theater with a simple flare-up of his grave baritone.  

Live, the tug-o-war between Berninger and his bandmates becomes ever more apparent. The singer is, at times, eerie, coolly laying over the stutter-beat of Bryan Devendorf on "Anyone's Ghost." The lyrics are just vague enough to fall somewhere between loneliness and something of a more sinister nature, but one fears the worst. A meaningless argument, or a day out with the kid on "Afraid of Everyone," became a mini noir scene, as brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner hinted at letting their guitars explode. But the atmospheres, even at their most slicing, felt designed to keep Berninger in his cage rather than letting him break loose. 

Even the math geeks have to cut loose now and again.

Over the course of the past decade, Daniel Snaith's body of work -- first under the name Manitoba and now Caribou -- has turned an electronic eye toward pop's past. His detailed songs, sometimes spazzy and often a little dreamy, put a modern gloss on '60s psychedelics. While always candy-colored and accessibly melodic, it was geek stuff -- seemingly loaded with layers and diversions for the vinyl set. 

Now with "Swim," the mathematician-turned-musician just wants the world to dance. Released last month via Merge Records, "Swim" puts the emphasis squarely on the groove. Opener "Odessa" is a sugar-high of rhythms, with synths that mimic whistles and vintage keyboard-sounds moving in a rave-like fury. 

And then things get weird. "Kali" is hypnotic mix of manipulated and vibrating electronic noises, "Lalibela" is minimalist charm, "Sun" is bachelor-pad space jazz and "Bowls" is a heady trip around the globe, with hand claps, harp-like sounds and rural beats. If one can't quite place the instruments that comprise the beat, Snaith said that was the intention.

"Those are samples from actual Tibetan bowls, but then they were played on a keyboard," Snaith said. "The fact that I’m playing those parts affects the timing, the sound and the harmonics. There’s a lot of that on the album -- a sample of one instrument that’s played on the keyboard to give it a different character. It’s all about making a weird hybrid."

Living in London, the Canadian said "Swim" was inspired by adventurous British dance producer James Holden and features a sound he first wanted to capture on 2007 pop album "Andorra." Of course, being asked to spin records in clubs also played an impact in Snaith's dance-heavy makeover. The artist was turned on by the instant feedback of dance culture.

"You get an intuitive response and a really honest read," said Snaith, who tested the tracks that ultimately constituted "Swim" in clubs. "People didn't know it was my stuff, so a lot of what I DJ'd, even if it was just a rhythmic snipped, ended up on the album." 

It will be created live Wednesday at the El Rey. Touring with a full band, Snaith will translate the electronics to the stage with a pair of drum kits, guitar, keyboard and bass. Though "Swim" is Snaith's most overtly electronic effort, he wanted to leave room for live improvisation and is striving for a fluid, heavily connected stage setup.

"The technology in the last couple years has leapt forward," Snaith said. "Four or five years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible to do all the technological things that we would have wanted to do. For example, there’s video projections that go along with the music, but they’re integrated. They’re being played live by someone on stage. Also, one step of a pedal triggers something else to happen. Or one press of a key on a keyboard can change the effect on another instrument. Everything is inter-connected." 

It sounds like the kind of complex live show that only a math-whiz could pull off. Yet Snaith, who has a PhD to his name, said the academic and artist worlds rarely meet. 

"The mathematics I was doing was so esoteric," he said. "It didn’t have any direct input on the music I was creating. Music was always intuitive and emotional. There are probably parts of both things that appeal to the same part of my personality, but I think I’d be making the exact same music if I had never done a mathematic equation."

Caribou at the El Rey, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., with Toro y Moi and Dublab DJs. Tickets are $20, not including Ticketmaster surcharges. 

Some other notable shows this week: 

The 11 songs on The National’s fifth album flow through the ears like an inky river with a top layer of prismatic sheen, like gasoline on black water. The Victorian high-church mood is so consistent that it’s sometimes hard to tell when a song has ended and another has started. That monochrome is a gift of the Brooklyn brooders, and occasionally a curse.

With 2007’s “Boxer,” the two sets of brothers and unrelated lead vocalist Matthew Berninger cemented a niche appeal similar to that of Wilco, the Chicago heroes of emotionally weighty songs. But where Wilco is ragged, the National is ruffled and tufted, sometimes embracing pomp and circumstance, sometimes turning its back on it cold.

One of the most stunning pieces on “High Violet” is “England,” which opens with steadily mounting orchestration -- rippling piano chords, the low thunder of drums, some pining strings and lofty horns. At its blustery peak, it threatens to topple from its own melodrama. The pleasure is in listening to how often the National scrapes up close to maudlin, only to retreat in the nick of time.

For all the depression, these guys certainly have the energy to work themselves into a frenzy. If Berninger’s voice has found 100 shades of morose, Bryan Devendorf counteracts it with his own language of ticking, dancing, approach-from-all-sides drumming.

When Berninger sings, “sorrow found me when I was young / sorrow waited, sorrow won… it’s in my honey, it’s in my milk,” it rings out like band philosophy. To drink in sadness is just natural for some. Leave happiness to the lazy pop stars.

-- Margaret Wappler

The National
"High Violet"
4AD
Three and a half stars (out of four)

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Brooklyn-via-Ohio rock band the National looks back on its new single, "Bloodbuzz Ohio," but it's not a sense of nostalgia that permeates the cut. "I never married, but Ohio don't remember me," sings Matt Berninger, laying down his now-trademark numb-from-despair baritone.

Leaked today in rough form, the cut is from the upcoming 4AD/Beggars release "High Violet," due May 10, and Stereogum soon thereafter secured a label-sanctioned finished version of the track available for download (listen below). The guitars come sleek and fast, picking up pace throughout the track, all the while the rhythm packs in a slight stutter, threatening to fall off the rails. 

Berninger is ready to surrender to a would-be lover in the song's opening verse, but there's more than romance the National are hinting at here. "I still owe money to the money to the money that I owe," Berninger sings with a shade of background harmonies. Flashes of horns arrive in the song's final moments, but they're brief and fleeting, like street lamp lighting as one is driving down the highway at night. 

The whole song taps a sense of running -- from the past, from commitments or perhaps from something even darker. "I'm on a blood ... buzz" are the last vocals before the the song builds to a guitar pile-up and abruptly dissolves. 

The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio

-- Todd Martens

The National will play the Wiltern on May 21 and May 22. Tickets are still available, $22.50-$27.50, sans service charges. Photo: Keith Klenowski