Sleep Well Beast
A tense, electronic-tinged portrait of domestic anxiety and marital drift. Glitchy drum machines and sharp guitar solos puncture the band's signature late-night haze.
A tense, electronic-tinged portrait of domestic anxiety and marital drift. Glitchy drum machines and sharp guitar solos puncture the band's signature late-night haze.
Electronic departure
Cold drum machines click in the dark like a radiator cooling down, cutting through the heavy, blue-velvet gloom of middle-age anxiety. You are sitting on the kitchen floor at 3 a.m. while static-laced guitars hiss through the floorboards. It is a quiet, domestic unraveling, held together by sudden, jagged sparks of electricity.
A restless current of keys/synth and modular electronic textures pulses beneath the band's traditional instrumentation, replacing their usual fluid grace with a cold, glitchy friction.
Widely praised for its adventurous and richly layered production, the album was warmly received by critics who admired the integration of subtle electronic textures into the band's signature sound. Reviewers found the record's restless, contemplative atmosphere to be deeply affecting, capturing a potent sense of anxiety and quiet endurance.
“Seven albums in, The National have become our premier doomsayers”Read review
“Clearly, the National aren’t out of new ideas yet”Read review
“Lyrically and sonically, the National’s seventh LP plumbs anxieties more deeply than ever. The result is a disarmingly potent album, not just emotionally but politically as well”Read review
“The National continues to display highly polished craftsmanship of simmering balladry on Sleep Well Beast”Read review
“It is full of abandon and quiet contemplation as Matt Berninger sings not about how to enjoy life, but how to simply endure it”Read review
“Musically, electronic influences are creeping in and the songs are more richly, thoughtfully layered than ever, no doubt a result of guitarist Bryce Dessner’s forays into film composing”Read review
“This isn’t The National’s finest album but there’s much to cherish on Sleep Well Beast. And it really matters that a band as capable of thoughtful, intimate commentary (both personal and political) are as big as The National are now”Read review
“Less fury at the dying of the light and more eye-rolling at a life partner, as the National tackle middle age with a novelist’s sense of atmosphere”Read review
“Sleep Well Beast is anything but complacent and it doesn’t skew from the high-caliber rock and roll the band has been producing since day one”Read review
“In spite of how quiet it can be, and what the title might instruct, Sleep Well Beast is never restful. In fact, it may be The National’s most agitated album yet”Read review
“Isn’t entirely discontinuous from the albums before it, but what it chooses to change and emphasize makes all the difference”
“Electronics are used for texture and shade, vocal harmonies glide through the mix, pianos anchor a couple of tunes - all subtle gradients within the National’s recognizable formula, but they’re enough to give Sleep Well Beast a distinct character”Read review
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