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May 20, 2013The National are such a powerfully gifted band, they need no theatrics to deliver an absolutely stone-cold beast of an album. With the music that is on here there is yet another thirteen songs to savor and salivate over until the next batch of songs comes about.
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May 16, 2013It's the subtlety, and the self-awareness, that make this album exquisite.
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May 16, 2013The warm but haunting Trouble Will Find Me will surely cement their accession to the rock mainstream.
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May 21, 2013Like the rest of the National catalog, Trouble Will Find Me is subtly insinuating; at first it seems almost free of hooks, then six listens later it’s difficult to get it unstuck.
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May 17, 2013A collection of remarkable songs by a group of musicians that compliment one another as well as any group over the last decade.
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May 30, 2013Trouble Will Find Me is impeccably sequenced, even at thirteen songs the rare National record that doesn’t contain “the one song they should have obviously left off.”
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May 28, 2013There is a fantastic flow from upbeat, crescendoing rockers to gentle yet looming ballads.
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May 24, 2013The National have arguably never struck that balance [between tenderness, optimism, humour and melodrama] quite as sweetly or persuasively as they do on Trouble Will Find Me, a layered, resoundingly human work that extends their winning streak without so much as breaking a sweat.
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May 21, 2013Trouble Will Find Me is the Brooklyn, N.Y., indie-rock band’s sixth and most deft album yet, a haunted and lugubrious meditation on loss and despair.
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May 17, 2013It’s approachable without compromise and confident enough to be itself, not another Alligator or High Violet, but unmistakably from the outset Trouble Will Find Me.
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May 16, 2013While The National don't progress or indeed offer anything new to outstanding cynics, they instead rejoice in their strengths of detailing life and all its sorry baggage in the most beautiful of ways.
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May 14, 2013This set of tracks will stand with their most masterful.
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Jul 3, 2013The National reveled in self-effacing jokes between the heaviness of their songs, and Trouble finally finds that balance on disc.
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May 22, 2013Not much on this album is immediate, and that’s a little disappointing, but more than any other National work, Trouble Will Find Me hints at depths upon depths hidden beneath the surface of thirteen very pretty songs.
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May 21, 2013A deeply internalized album, it’s The National at their Nationalest. It is, as well, a collection of songs about songs: clever but not meta, and thankfully never cute or self-impressed.
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May 21, 2013Overall, Trouble Will Find Me is another accomplished entry for a band that doesn't seem to know how to do anything else.
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May 20, 2013Unpredictable it is not, but taken as a study of sound and mood, it’s kind of perfect.
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May 21, 2013As a culmination and refinement of everything the National have done over the past decade, Trouble Will Find Me couldn’t be granted a more fitting mission statement.
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May 16, 2013The National had reached a level of comfort very few indie rock acts achieve. That feeling of comfort permeates every part of their new album, Trouble Will Find Me.
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MagnetJun 18, 2013It is, by any measure, a lovely, lovingly made record, its 13 tracks coming to enveloping climaxes via mystifyinng, electrifying turns of phrase. [No.99, p.51]
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Jun 10, 2013The difference on Trouble Will Find Me is that everything feels clarified through a decade of wisdom, with volatility frequently superseded by sensibility.
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Jun 4, 2013Trouble Will Find Me manages to pull off the impressive trick of finding the band at once at their most direct and musically inventive.
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May 24, 2013On a superficial level, Trouble Will Find Me, the National’s latest full-length LP, probably won’t convert any listeners who’ve written off the band’s music as boring.... Of course, the power’s in the poetics, and Berninger concocts some truly heart-wrenching images this time around.
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May 20, 2013They have pulled off another album for the modern age, and its stories live in all of us.
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May 20, 2013This time, the National utterly refuses to buttonhole listeners; the music calmly awaits attention, but amply repays it.
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MojoMay 20, 2013They might shake, they might tremble, but The National remain a safe pair of hands. [Jun 2013, p.86]
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May 20, 2013The occasional off-kilter touch throws things sufficiently askew to deny listeners any complacency.
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May 20, 2013The guests on Trouble Will Find Me are equally impressive (Sufjan Stevens, Sharon Van Etten), but the National, no question, are the real stars of the show.
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May 20, 2013Progress may not be the right word for what The National achieves with Trouble Will Find Me, but sustained brilliance is a pretty good alternative.
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May 17, 2013Trouble Will Find Me burns slowly, but melds together more seamlessly with each listen.
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May 16, 2013On Trouble Will Find Me, they’ve perfected it, knowing when a hook should explode and when to hold back and let Berninger’s signature, sombre baritone take over.
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May 16, 2013While catharsis never comes, there are glimpses of light coming through at the edges, and a sense of perfect order among the chaos.
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May 16, 2013The National are letting light and air into their shadows.
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UncutMay 14, 2013Perhaps for the first time, The National sound relaxed in their skin. [Jun 2013, p.77]
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May 14, 2013The result is a painstakingly composed batch of tracks that struggle to break free from their gorgeously constructed prisons.
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Jun 5, 2013Poised, cool, and impermeable, Trouble Will Find Me apotheosizes urban romance and its discontents, where conversations are monologues, parties are confessionals, and education and analysis are interchangeable.
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May 23, 2013This is The National’s 4th or 5th comfortably strong album in a row, another slight variation on a tried-and-true theme.
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May 21, 2013They have laid down some astounding tracks here, but as a whole, the album is not on par with any full-length the band have released since Alligator.
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May 21, 2013An album that’s worthy of your admiration for its execution and vision, even if it doesn’t quite inspire the same visceral appeal that made the group’s unflinchingly intimate, first-person vignettes approachable and absorbing.
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May 20, 2013For better or for worse, they perfected their sound the last time around, so it’s hard to fault them for sticking so close to the fire, especially on such a snowy night.
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May 15, 2013For now though, as an album, as a piece of art, it’s beautifully painted but the colour palette needs to expand substantially.
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May 21, 2013To the National's credit, its exploration of the dour has never been this subtle, but by never shifting the mood, the band has also never been this draining.
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May 17, 2013So while Trouble Will Find Me remains well crafted and satisfying, there's something inherently stultifying about it as well.
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Q MagazineMay 14, 2013For a band who sing so often about matters of the heart and emotional connection, much of Trouble Will Find Me sounds oddly on autopilot. [Jun 2013, p.106]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 220 out of 239
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Mixed: 14 out of 239
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Negative: 5 out of 239
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May 21, 2013
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May 21, 2013
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May 21, 2013