Considering that May is an extremely busy month for music releases by some of the leading lights of indie rock, it might be easy for any one of those albums to get lost in the shuffle.

I can only hope that "High Violet," the new album from Brooklyn quintet The National, isn’t one of those to be lost, because this music deserves the widest audience available. Off this evidence, when the conversation arises about who rock’s next great hope might be, this band should be smack dab in the middle of it.

Of course, rock is not exactly what these guys bring to the table, at least not in the guitars-blazing, arena-shaking form we sometimes perceive the genre to be. Theirs is a much more subtle and expansive brand of music, atmospheric and insinuating, sneaking up on you until you find yourself immersed in its majestic and moody beauty.

In the past, The National has gotten the rap as a band whose music takes time to ingratiate itself. I found that to be true with 2007’s "Boxer," which grabbed me just barely enough at first listen to bring me back for a second, before eventually the subtleties revealed themselves in full and I was hooked.

By contrast, "High Violet" makes its presence felt much quicker, with varied melodic and musical hooks, so maybe it’s got a chance to break down public wariness of critical darlings.

Indeed, it shouldn’t take more than one listen to the first single “Bloodbuzz Ohio” to get a buzz of your own. Swirling atmospherics surround the thumping, frenetic beat of drummer Bryan Devendorf as singer Matt Berninger intones the darkly enigmatic chorus, “I’m on a blood buzz, yes, I am.”

Devendorf’s drumming is one of the band’s chief weapons, a flurry of rapid snare action that keep tracks like “Anyone’s Ghost” and “Conversation 16” from floating off into space and imbuing them with serious bite.

Berninger’s unfazed baritone can cast a spell with the best of them, falling somewhere between famous deadpanners like Ian Curtis and Leonard Cohen. His dissociative, ruminative lyrics are intended to keep you off guard, but he usually brings things back to a simple message which anyone can glean, like the way he repeats the phrase “I don’t want to get over you” in the tautly arranged, tension-filled “Sorrow,” busting through the dark haze with honest emotion.

You can hear the band build these songs piece-by-piece, but things usually congeal to some thrilling musical peak. Guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner and bassist Scott Devendorf are minimalists, providing integral texture to these songs while graciously allowing room for well-placed horns and strings to accentuate Berninger’s sometimes harrowing journey into the darkness, which takes him everywhere from Manhattan to LA to England but never to salvation.

The ballads are reminiscent of U2’s slow-building constructs like “One” or “Bad,” albeit lacking any of Bono’s cathartic glory notes.

Berninger’s characters never get off quite that easy in the gorgeously tortured “Terrible Love” and “Runaway.” The latter is a contender for Song of the Year, with tickling acoustic guitars and surging horns around an ominously thudding kick drum and Berninger defiantly standing in the ashes of a burned-out love: “I won’t be no runaway/Cause I won’t run.”

Many of the songs on "Boxer" worked perfectly as background music for TV shows and commercials, but I’m not sure that the songs on this album will be similarly used. They’re just so completely engulfing on their own terms that they’d likely dwarf any visuals they might accompany.

The band has found a way to make music that gives you an immediate rush while still providing enough depth in which you can delve and wallow. Only the very best do that, and The National of "High Violet" are at that lofty level.

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Bloodbuzz Ohio"

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Sorrow"

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Runaway"