The National
Sleep Well Beast

I have read mixed reviews regarding this latest The National album, 'Sleep Well Beast', released by the Cincinnati, Ohio band on September eighth.

Clearly, we're talking about one of the most anticipated albums of the year, considering the simple fact that The National are no longer strictly an 'indie' act, but an established band. With this work, recorded at Long Pond Studios in Hudson Valley, New York, they release their seventh studio album.

I like the idea of reviewing this album positively, particularly because I've never been a great listener of this group and cannot in any way consider myself a longtime fan.

It must be said that, in general, the specialized press has been very generous in reviewing this album. The same goes for the main points of reference in the international and Italian world-wide-web (Pitchfork, The Guardian...).

Nevertheless, there is a typical 'weariness' towards this group from many, which inevitably arises from the listeners towards any reality that does not necessarily constitute a novelty, or that at some point, on a listener and audience level, makes that leap in quality that takes a niche band to fame.

Success, however, is historically a double-edged sword: because it also depends on what you do once you achieve it. The truth is that when you do things and they are (in this case) listened to, you inevitably subject yourself to the judgment of listeners. And the more listeners you can reach with your music, the more there can be criticisms and comments of all kinds.

This is something that can be frightening: you need to have a broad back to manage to not care. Certainly, in the case of The National, we're not talking about success equivalent to that of the Rolling Stones, but it is also true that overwhelmingly intrusive personalities like those of Mick Jagger, Keef, etc., are difficult to find.

In their small dimension of a recognized great indie group, therefore, The National are searching within this album for their emotional microcosm, freeing themselves, in my opinion, from the label of yet another new-wave revival band. Thanks to skilled songwriting and a particular taste in arrangements, they achieve what I consider a small masterpiece in the genre of singer-songwriter pop this year.

'Sleep Well Beast' reminds me a lot of an album I loved last year, 'A Little Death' by the lesser-known My Jerusalem: the tones are clearly twilight, as per the group's tradition, but what emerges is particularly an important content on a purely emotional level.

Essentially a collection of nocturnal laments, 'Sleep Well Beast' is a kind of lullaby that cradles the listener in a comforting scale of grays and soft lights, ultimately making them dream with open eyes while putting that 'beast' we all carry inside us to sleep and that we need to keep at bay to purify our soul.

Perhaps one of the limitations of the album is the lack of particular variety between tracks, but this is not something that should be expected from such a work that doesn’t aim to propose something innovative, but rather to focus on the purely emotional aspect and the content of the individual songs regarding atmospheres and sounds and simple songwriting.

Some songs like 'Day I Die', the single 'The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness', the ballad 'I'll Still Destroy You' are more markedly pop and perhaps more in line with the band’s art-rock tradition, but the real surprise and the most important content of the album are found in the rest of the song package that composes the album.

Twilight piano sessions influenced by dub-step suggestions such as 'Nobody Else Will Be There' or 'Guilty Party' (with some suggestions of early Xiu Xiu), the gospel of 'Born To Beg', the nods to Nick Cave in 'Turtleneck', the poignant 'Carin At The Liquor Store', the delicacy of 'Dark Side Of The Gym' and the liquid intoxication of the title track which is a real punch in the stomach, are the songs that constitute the true 'ideological corpus' and best represent the group’s intentions in this their seventh studio recording episode.

I honestly think this is a good album.

An arguably trivial definition in a world where one must always seek something new to do and say. But frankly, for this time I have no particular insight and I simply suggest listening and letting one song slide behind the other and let yourself be candidly enveloped in an ideal cloak of reassuring calm.