Last night, a night after they served as musical guests on Letterman, the National returned to TV, bringing their debonair and sophisticated gloom-rock to The Colbert Report. On Letterman, though, nobody expected them to sit for an interview. And on Colbert, the clearly nervous-as-fuck singer Matt Berninger had to speak on camera to Stephen Colbert, who proceeded to murder him for being a boring interview. (For the record, I’ve interviewed Berninger before, and I found him to be a delightful talker. But he probably wasn’t nervous to talk to me.)

The band got a chance to redeem themselves, though, when they played the stately, surging Trouble Will Find Me track “Graceless” and then, as an online bonus, also charged through the single “Sea Of Love.” The Colbert website is having some embedding issues right now, but you can watch the full episode here. (The interview is the third segment, and the song is the fourth.) Check out the “Sea Of Love” performance below.

Trouble Will Find Me is out now on 4AD.