Sleep Well Beast, the group's seventh record, marks another seemingly small step for the band, as this time there are more colourful electronic flourishes through background keys and slowly building, simplistic beats (like the one on opening slow burner Nobody Else Will Be There). Walk It Back, a sinister and tense epic, pushes synth to the front and calmly envelops it in supplementary sounds. There's also I'll Still Destroy You, which pulls any new wave influences bestowed upon the band into plain view, and a lot of instrumentation is brought in to bolster the song's insistent melody; it's a shimmering example of how different The National can sound while at the same time being unmistakably themselves. The closing title track, meanwhile, draws some musical parallels between The National and turn of the millennium era Radiohead, at least at first. Like on I'll Still Destroy You, the song slowly builds layers of sounds until eventually it's gone from insular to majestic.
Lest you believe you're in for nothing but sweeping electronic ballads, Sleep Well Beast also holds some of The National's most intense and energetic material; the mid-album politically charged rager Turtleneck is the most out-and-out loud rock song they've put to tape in recent memory, Matt Berninger's biting performance recalling Nick Cave in one of his fouler moods. Meanwhile, early highlight Day I Die gallops along on a thick and busy beat that sounds like it's perpetually about to trip over itself, and the squealing guitars fall under the tune's spell of chaos as the band rides the razor's edge to its conclusion while never losing control or dulling its impact. It's a unique kind of balancing act that could only be pulled off by a group of accomplished and familiar musicians (two sets of brothers and almost 20 years of playing together will do that). There are sneakily crafted moments like this throughout; lead single The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness has tension bubbling under its surface but, as the song lurches toward its finale, there are soothing points of electronic light alongside the increasingly chaotic layers of noise.
The space between calm and intensity yields some of the album's best moments, as illustrated on the haunting and heartbroken Guilty Party, which takes the album's lyrical cues (many songs deal with relationships deteriorating) to a conclusion of sorts, Berninger assigning blame equally and throwing in the proverbial towel while the band swirls a quiet storm of pianos and drums around the sad message. It's immediately followed by Carin at the Liquor Store, a shuffling piano ballad about that sounds like a eulogy for the relationship that ended on Guilty Party, an act of expert-level sequencing.
There's a nagging criticism from some circles that The National haven't evolved enough, but I simply don't buy it; there's a claim to be made for much of their music sounding the same, but only insomuch as the band have become experts at incorporating outside influences into their core sound while keeping that core sound intact. The experiments undertook on Sleep Well Beast may have come off as haphazard and desperate attempts at evolution and botched by a host of lesser bands. In the hands of seasoned and consistent pros like The National, however, it's just another rung on the ladder. More importantly, it's yet another case for The National being one of our most vibrant and important current day bands.
9 EXCELLENT
September 8, 2015 • 4AD
Highlights Day I Die • Walk It Back • Guilty Party
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