You can hear them becoming the National in real time. That picture of Matt Berninger on the cover is a little blurry, which feels right because the band as we now know them wouldn’t properly come into focus until the next album. But on Alligator, the suave and mangy masterpiece they released 20 years ago this Saturday, it’s happening before your ears: These five guys from Ohio are figuring out an approach to indie rock that will launch them to stardom and, for better or worse, change the genre forever.
