Sleep Well Beast

It is an incredibly cohesive album though--it operates in its own defined space and has an intense frostiness to, which, for The National, is saying something.

Sleep Well Beast sees The National flourish with candid lyrics and diverse song craft, embodying the band’s continuing evolution and life’s constant change.

It’s a different kind of thing now, even if the fundamentals are unchanged. It finds the National snapping out of the comfortable groove they’ve settled in over the last decade, fuelled by strife, battle-tested wisdom, and a touch of righteousness.

Every member of this band is wholly present and firing on all cylinders here.

This is the band's best album since Boxer, and will stand as one of the year's best. [Jul - Sep 2017, p.58]

It’s the best National album since Boxer; and for argument’s sake, Devendorf’s drumming hasn’t been this vital for ten years.

Sleep Well Beast certainly takes the air out of the hopeful balloon that swelled on Trouble Will Find Me, but if there’s ever been a time to wallow in lush, masculine melancholy, it’s now. This beast isn’t going anywhere.

Sleep Well Beast is an album that rewards repeat listens and unfurls its beauty slowly over time: The National have yet again made an album that’s as brilliant as it is ambitious.

Sleep Well Beast is a heartfelt confession plucked straight from a middle-aged couple's diary on how good and bad things get, how we feel to leave at these tragic moments, how death touches us from that moment we learn to love, but most of all, it teaches us that love is worth fighting for and work has to be put in. No matter what.

Nothing on Sleep Well Beast is headline-new. But you are either in singer Matt Berninger’s corner, clinging on as he drills down into his anxieties, or you are wondering why even validated white guys in first-world countries can still eat themselves up inside so insatiably.

They don’t reinvent the band’s image so much as carefully muss its hair a bit, unfasten one more button on its shirt collar. They are still a good dinner-party band, but now they’ve made the album for when the wine starts spilling on the rug, the tablecloth is rumpled, the music has imperceptibly gotten louder, and all those friendly conversations have turned a little too heated.

The libretto and effects boards on Sleep Well Beast may signal doom, but the replenished energy in the music feels life-affirming. Somehow, the most despondent album they’ve ever made still sounds like a celebration.

Is it a worthy addition to their canon, though? Absolutely. The things that make this band a real treasure can all still be found here--the slightly beat-up romanticism, the pessimism of the secret optimist, the big, bold beauty of the melodies, the detailed imperfect perfection of the music.

They sound as involved as they’ve ever been, the fruits of considering a more improvisational and segmented approach to writing music.

There may not be any moments of dramatic catharsis to compete with “Sea of Love” or “Mr. November,” but the band’s gift for slow, sad beauties (“Nobody Else Will Be There,” “Carin at the Liquor Store”) remains undiminished. Even as they tinker with their style, The National can’t help but sound like themselves.

Lyrically and sonically, the National's seventh LP plumbs anxieties more deeply than ever. The result is a disarmingly potent album, not just emotionally but politically as well.

For most veteran bands, the beast is complacency. The National slays it here and stays on top of the rock world in the process.

You find yourself simultaneously applauding its elegance and the evident thought and craftsmanship that went into making it, while quietly wishing it would get a move on. When it does, it’s fantastic.

The National’s 2013 album, “Trouble Will Find Me,” was a culmination of sorts: accomplished, polished, measured, mature. Sleep Well Beast is just as polished and even more intricate. But it also shakes things up.

They’ve [experimental sonics] been added to the steadfast elements that make The National so good: clever turns of phrase, genius storytelling, Bryan Devendorf’s marching-band drums, delightful arrangements and piano and brass that work well together.

Aat large, the album is a quiet predator.

Sleep Well Beast is as sad a record as The National have ever made, and yet it also feels like their most hopeful.

Sleep Well Beast succeeds due to a simple songwriting decision that, in retrospect, illuminates why High Violet and Trouble Will Find Me fall into ruts.

The album does get a little bit repetitive towards its climax. Overall The National have survived their electronic ring of fire relatively unscathed.

These soft, slow songs are surrounded by cuts where the darkness opens up slightly but significantly. It's enough to make Sleep Well Beast feel like a dramatic departure in the close quarters of the National's discography.

Sleep Well Beast is undoubtedly richly textured, but it still demands the listener lean in. [Oct 2017, p.109]

This new material finds them in [a] more experimental mode. [Oct 2017, p.90]

An aquatic, slow-moving work, rich with melancholic atmosphere. [Oct 2017, p.35]

Overall Sleep Well Beast is a more subdued record that shows evidence of their solo side projects having shaped their new direction. Those who know that a new National album often requires multiple listens to fully grow and reveal its charms and nuances will have their patience rewarded, as this is a beautiful piece of work.

Sleep Well Beast is anything but complacent and it doesn’t skew from the high-caliber rock and roll the band has been producing since day one.

This isn’t The National’s finest album--for my money, that’s still High Violet, or if I’m feeling fruity, Alligator--but there’s much to cherish on Sleep Well Beast.

Thankfully, the National have deftly managed that balancing act with Sleep Well Beast, a record that is equal parts familiar and fresh.

There are only a few uptempo cuts here, but unlike on the band's last few releases, each of them propels the album forward.