Four years have passed since the release of Trouble Will Find Me, but frontman Matt Berninger has said that The National started working on this record the minute they finished touring the last one: “The only break we took was from the constant pressure we put on each other. We didn’t feel like rushing it.”

With the members now living in different cities, the band made an extra effort to get together in the same room – sometimes in studios in upstate New York, or out in Los Angeles. The result is a far more traditional rock album compared to what The National usually produces, with the five men solidified in a condensed space together. There are songs on Sleep Well Beast that are instantly recognisable as The National, but others that are much harder to classify. It is also their best album since Boxer.

Guitar solos appear like never before in an exploration of new atmospheric territory for the Ohio group. The passing of that time and the enlargement of some of the worries of age appears to have infused into their music, with the tracks just as emotionally-dense as they have always been, with Berninger’s obscure lyrics still equally as allusive as the rest of the back catalogue.

Produced by band member Aaron Dessner, with co-production by Bryce Dessner and Berninger, the album was mixed by Peter Katis and recorded at Aaron Dessner’s Hudson Valley, New York studio, Long Pond, with additional sessions having taken place in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles.

Brothers Aaron and Bryce convened for a series of writing sessions in an old church in Hudson, New York before it was recorded. “It’s the first time we have had a space of our own where we can keep all our instruments and work on songs any time, day or night,” said Bryce. “The space was designed specifically for the band to make this album, with an open plan and no control room so that everyone could be wired up and playing all the time. The idea was to loosen the reigns and formality of our past recording process and allow for experimentation from beginning to end.”

‘Nobody Else Will Be There’s ?delicate piano line kicks things off before ‘Day I Die’s’ propulsive, tight drum work takes over proceedings. “I don’t need you, I don’t need you… It feels like you’re only half-way there,” cries Berninger in typical dejected fashion. The reflective, emotional ‘Walk It Back’ soon follows before lead single ‘The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness’ comes in with a guitar riff unlike anything the group have recorded before.

‘Born To Beg’ is a melancholic number, rich with atmosphere and emotion that wouldn’t have been out of place on Trouble Will Find Me. ‘Turtleneck’ then goes back to their Alligator period in an angry, heavy guitar rush of turbulence which the band chose to end their recent Glastonbury set with, in the form of an elongated version.

Album epicentre and finest song ‘Empire Line’ then comes along and is one of those National compositions in which Berninger’s vocals work perfectly with the rich instrumentation that backs it. Particularly in the closing arrangement in which he spills out the line: “I’ve been talking ‘bout you to myself.” This is soon followed with ‘I’ll Still Destroy You’, which could equally be at home in the end credits of a romantic comedy. The same goes for ‘Guilty Party’, which explores themes of anxiety and growing old with a partner together: “I say your name, I say I’m sorry, it’s not your fault.”

The delicate ‘Carin At The Liquor Store’, meanwhile, shows Berninger’s writing is focused on his melancholic mind-set: “I’m always thinking about useless things, I’m always checking out.” This is before he croons on the slow-burning ‘Dark Side of the Gym’ before the band again end in euphoric fashion with ‘Sleep Well Beast.’

The National have long been celebrated as suppliers of pessimistic romanticism and glorious melancholy. Sleep Well Beast sees them still doing this only with a slightly more solid edge, with more of a focus placed on melody and intimacy in what is a spellbinding album that cements them as a higher standard than the rest of indie-rock.

Paul Hill

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