The National, Sleep Well Beast – Album Review In the midst of their two sold-out shows at Vicar Street, Conall Monaghan takes a look at The National's latest offering, and finds himself underwhelmed.

●●●○○

 

 

The National’s most recent offering Sleep Well Beast follows after Trouble Will Find Me, which was a puzzling record. It continued their unbroken streak of critical acclaim, appearing on multiple “Albums of the Year” lists as well as earning them a Grammy nomination. Yet the reaction on the ground seemed a lot less enthusiastic than the critics’. I had to burn my dad three copies of High Violet, as continuous listens in the car kept scratching it, yet after one listen of Trouble Will Find Me he said he had had enough. He’s not alone. It became increasingly common to hear people say they loved Boxer, Alligator and High Violet, but found their recent work a little boring. It might make sense if they had gone in an entirely new direction and therefore attracted a new fan-base, however their style has stayed pretty consistent. If you to were to ask those like my dad why Trouble Will Find Me which did not appeal to them, they would most likely reply that the songs simply didn’t sound as good. Sleep Well Beast, while garnishing so far the same critical acclaim as any other The National record, continues what is a downward trajectory.

 

Not sounding as good as the past however does not equate with being bad. Sleep Well Beast is far from a terrible album.  The instrumentation is as good, if not better, than ever. The Dessner brothers have been writing increasingly ethereal instrumentals with every release since High Violet. They’ve cranked it up another notch here with a much greater emphasis on synths and even a drum-beat or two. It’s an ethereal hotchpotch. One or two of the tracks could be categorised as electronic. Other tracks bear some similarity to their frequent collaborator Sufjan Steven’s recent album Carrie And Lowell, especially “Walk It Back”.  Then there’s the up-tempo songs such as the ‘Day I Die’, which for the most part maintain the ethereal vibe through heavy use of synths. The only thematic outlier is ‘Turtleneck’ which is the heaviest song The National have ever put on the tape. It’s also their worst song to date. The chorus see a minor to major modulation, which just sounds more grating every time it’s heard. Furthermore, Berninger puts on a Nick Cave impression in the verses, which, if it succeeds in anything, just makes one want to turn it off and listen to a superior Cave song.

 

The mention of Berninger brings me to my main gripe with Sleep Well Beast. The National’s frontman seems completely uninterested and uninspired on this record. The vocal melodies are so redundant at times that they are immediately forgotten after a listen. Even after my fourth or fifth listening of Sleep Well Beast I still cannot hum the basic melody of half these tracks. And while Berninger’s low voice is one The National’s greatest assets, the mumbling here reaches a new height, at which point the lyrics can be a little hard to decipher. Then there’s the lyrics themselves.  

 

The issue with the lyrics is best understood by contrasting Berninger with one of his contemporaries. In LCD Soundsystem’s recent record, Murphy despondently remarks that “I’ve just got nothing left to say… I’m just too old for it now.” Solace is found in the next line however by his realisation that “at least that seems to be true.” Murphy manages to keeps his lyrics relevant by turning relevance on its head, therefore finding something to say when there’s nothing left. Berninger is roughly the same age as Murphy and frontman of a equally large critically acclaimed indie band that found success around the same time. The meta-lyrical difference between Murphy and Berninger is that Berninger seems content to continue as if nothing will ever change. But things have changed; how could they not? It’s been 10 years since Boxer. Berninger continues to sing about the gritty nature of human relationships but now it sounds as if it comes from an obligation to maintain the brand rather than an urge to open up. For example, at his best, Berninger could carry a song with a single cryptic line that stuck with the listener long after the instrumental had been forgotten. Lines like “We’re half awake in a fake empire” and “It takes a notion not to break” were hard to forget once heard. Yet when Berninger tries the same trick here on the song “The Day I Die” the result is insipid. Although the repetition of the line “The day I die where will we be?” makes up a considerable portion of the song, it’s hard to care where Berninger and his partner are the day he dies. It’s even harder to see why Berninger would care. Surely any interest in their whereabouts, whether it’s the locale or how connected the two are at that moment, would be overshadowed by the prospect of death or the current state of their relationship? It’s a frivolous question, it seems – asked for the sake of sounding sombre. It doesn’t signal good things that it happens to be the main hook off one of the album’s singles.

 

It’s not all uninspired from Berninger’s account though. When he delivers, the tracks stand out. ‘Guilty Party’, for one, is up there with band’s best material. The lyrics may lack the literary flare of some past tracks but Berninger sings with enough conviction, and with a strong enough melody, as to make it barely noticeable. The titular track Sleep Well Beast is another case.  It’s a strong contender for the strangest song the band has ever recorded. Berninger sings in a growling voice over a glitchy electronic accompaniment that’s somewhat reminiscent of Radiohead’s titular album track “Kid A”.  Another is “Born To Beg”, in which the piano and vocals complement each other really well, and features some excellent spectral backing vocals by Lisa Hannigan. They’re all fine examples of what The National can do when every member is at the top of their game. Perhaps the former fans are wrong. The National are still worth the listen, but only once we lower the expectations they sat for themselves a decade ago.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *