The National refreshes its sound on ‘Sleep Well Beast’
On its previous six albums, the National evolved into a sound distinctly its own. The sonic imprint has been in place for a decade: moody atmospherics, confessional baritone vocals, simmer-toa-boil dynamics.
It led to a consistency that bordered on predictable. But the four-year break since the quintet’s last studio album, in which the band members jumped into a variety of side projects, has brought renewal. “Sleep Well Beast” (4AD) plays it mostly lowkey, but it’s also volatile, strange and a little creepy. It’s an album that works well with the lights turned low, if only to better empathize with the dimming prospects of singer Matt Berninger’s narrators. But within the gloom, the band innovates.
In the mode of latterday Radiohead, glitchy electronics play nearly as big a role as more traditional rock instrumentation.
Static bubbles through and then recedes into darkness on “Empire Line,” a woodpecker keyboard taps at the surface of “Born to Beg,” and a tropical rain forest of sound infuses the title track with things that go bump in the night.
Orchestral touches add a further sense of disruption or subtly underline the light that glimmers from the fringes. Just as inventive is Bryan Devendorf ’s drumming. Rather than bashing or syncopating in more familiar patterns, he brings a rippling, largely cymbals-free undercurrent that deftly complements Berninger’s vocal cadences. Guitars are more sparingly featured in the mix but knife through the surface at decisive moments to lift “Day I Die” and “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness.”
Berninger’s lyrics are about relationships struggling to survive the first blush of infatuation and work toward something more lasting, but it may already be too late: “It’s nobody’s fault / No guilty party / I just got nothing left / Nothing left to say.”
This isn’t necessarily new territory for the National, but the album lights up when Berninger and his bandmates stretch a bit. The relationships the singer describes aren’t just personal but political. In “Turtleneck,” the National unabashedly rocks out as the singer unshackles his rageattheentitledsuitswho try to pass themselves off as leaders. “This must be the genius we’ve been waiting years for,” he sneers.
“Dark Side of the Gym” is its polar opposite, its tenderness accented by a lovely doo-wop-style arrangement. It’s a nakedly emotional moment tucked at the back of the album, as if the National were trying to hide its love away. But this song and this band are too luminous to disappear into the shadows.