LogFAQs > #886923320

The National - Sleep Well Beast

I’ve been hearing about The National since at least Boxer, and possibly Alligator. Something about their name just led me to believe their music would be boring as fuck. You know, “white bummer” music as they say… or more accurately as I say, and hope it catches on. It’s not even that I don’t like that type of music, it’s just not for every day. When it came to The National that day never really came, despite me thinking that Trouble Will Find Me was a badass album title and the fact that the music itself was reviewing extremely well.

So two tracks in and this is already heavier than anything I expected, based on my own completely made up expectations. Time for a track-by-track analysis (being generous with that word here)

Day I Die - Oh hey, it turns out I like The National… or at least what they’re doing right now.

Walk It Back - Electronics… interesting. Not interesting meaning it’s captured my interest… more like “wasn’t expecting that”. Sampled voices talking over one another, that’s the other type of interesting. I don’t like this song though. It makes my speaker do weird things.

The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness - I want these guys to name things for me, they’re great at it. Also, this song kicks ass. Wait a second.. They actually say the title in the song? 5 stars.

Born To Beg - Ahh… 3 notes in and I can already tell this is the white bummer stuff I was expecting before this began. Not feeling it.

Turtleneck - Literally forgot to make a comment on this one. Take that as you will.

Empire Line - This song? It gets better.

I’ll Still Destroy You - There is some serious shit going on in here. Like.. layers. Cool ending.This song went places.

Guilty Party - Badass names galore. I really like the outro on this song. Very pleasant.

Carin at the Liquor Store - Not diggin’ the piano here. It’ll be a miracle if I start enjoying this song at any point. No miracles today.

Dark Side of the Gym - I can’t with these titles anymore. TOO GOOD. This song? Not… too good.

Sleep Well Beast - Fuck it.

I overhyped myself with this album. I thought it would be one thing, the second track convinced me I was totally wrong and it was another thing, but then it turned out that it was totally that first thing all along. It might sound like I hate this album, but that’s not totally true. It is close to the truth though. I hate myself more for getting excited though. I was already thinking about going back and listening to all their other albums, hell I was thinking about going back and listening to Matt Berninger’s appearance on Pete Holmes’ podcast. I was all in guys. Things really took a turn at “Born to Beg” and I was never hooked back in.


Final Rating: Trust your gut/10
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares