Album Rating: 3.0

There are too many songs on here with some repetitive electronic elements backing a mid-tempo, basic, and halting female/Matt vocal melody. They just kind of blur together and my enjoyment of them hinges on how tolerable I find the sonic patterns in the background.

Album Rating: 4.0

Yeah. There’s very little here I actively dislike, I’m just not connecting to a lot of the individual songs. It must be said that this is lyrically pretty weak too.

“Where Is Her Head” is growing on me but ironically it’s the solo Matt section there that’s holding it back for me.

“Not In Kansas” would be better without the “Noble Experiment” part, cut that and it’d solid 4ish minute song.

But again overall it’s far from a turd, it’s The National’s Reflektor, not their Everything Now...but does that mean their Everything Now is next?

Album Rating: 3.0

You Had Your Soul With You: 3/5

Quiet Light: 4.5/5

Roman Holiday: 3/5

Oblivions: 4/5

The Pull Of You: 3/5

Hey Rosey: 3.5/5

I Am Easy To Find: 3.5/5

Her Father In The Pool: 2/5

Where Is Her Head: 4/5

Not In Kansas: 3.5/5

So Far So Fast: 3/5

Dust Swirls In Strange Light: 2/5

Hairpin Turns: 3/5

Rylan: 4.5/5

Underwater: 2/5

Light Years: 4/5

Album Rating: 2.5

"There are too many songs on here with some repetitive electronic elements backing a mid-tempo, basic, and halting female/Matt vocal melody. They just kind of blur together and my enjoyment of them hinges on how tolerable I find the sonic patterns in the background."



well said

Album Rating: 4.0

Currently I have:

You Had Your Soul With You: 3.5/5 (I actually like this quite a bit, it might be a 4)

Quiet Light: 4.5/5 (this one gives me all the National-y feels I want, might grow to a 5)

Roman Holiday: 3.5/5 (this one’s growing on me)

Oblivions: 3.5/5 (growing off me)

The Pull Of You: 2/5

Hey Rosey: 3/5 (that vocal pause, pretty meh lyrics and melodies elsewhere, pretty nondescript instrumental)

I Am Easy To Find: 4/5 (growing)

Her Father In The Pool: 2.5/5

Where Is Her Head: 3.5/5

Not In Kansas: 3.5/5

So Far So Fast: 4/5 (by handing the vocal duties over almost completely this one does work quite well and the outro is effective)

Dust Swirls In Strange Light: 3/5 (last 2 minutes are a decent instrumental)

Hairpin Turns: 4/5 (beautiful chorus and a wonderfully warm song all the way through)

Rylan: 4/5 (best lyrics but people may be overrating this a bit, I also don’t like the femvox verse)

Underwater: 2.5/5 (I really hate the placement of this, ruins the momentum of an otherwise really strong closing run)

Light Years: 5/5 (this one just got me from the first listen as a single and is even more impactful as the closing track here)

Album Rating: 2.5

man light years is so w.e, idk. it's not a bad song at all but it's hardly that exciting imo. her father in the pool is clearly one of the best and most thoughtful songs they've ever written

Album Rating: 4.0

Not counting the interludes it’s honestly a pretty solid set of track ratings but still I enjoy 80% of this less than 80% of their previous material. I certainly not ruling out it going to a 4 for me.

Album Rating: 4.0

Gyro, it’s simple but it works to a charm for me. It’s been done before but sometimes a great ballad is just a great ballad.

Album Rating: 2.0

i enjoyed this quite a bit on my first listen

Album Rating: 3.5

Pull and Kansas are both good songs not sure why everyone seems to be ganging up on those tracks

Album Rating: 4.0

The “Noble Experiment” part of “Not In Kansas” doesn’t quite land for me as I said and it doesn’t really flow with the rest of the album. It’s this album’s “Turtleneck”. Pull idk, it just really doesn’t work for me.

I’m being relatively harsh on this only because I love this band so much, the flaws stand out for me more than the successes because success is the assumption for these guys.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Not in Kansas, Pull, Dust Swirls, Had Your Soul, Hey Rosey, and the interludes are what bring this down. Despite some great qualities in those tracks, they don’t fully work. Rest is excellent.

Album Rating: 3.5

I do agree that this could have been shortened. There's some merely "decent" songs that could have been trimmed and then this would probably have been yet another National 5 for me. But as it stands it's a notch below HV and SWB, which have become my twin pillars representing this band's excellence.

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

Think people are grossly underestimating the band’s back catalogue regarding the songs included here being classics or excellent



Doof top 100 National Songs list incoming

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

It’s cool that you love SWB so much Sowing

I mostly agree with gigantism and Boneys posts on the previous page.

While The National don’t need to keep doing rock music structures and tropes, I do think they’ve somewhat lost the urgency and compelling melodies/songwriting they used to do. Some of these songs still pack a big emotional punch I find tho, like So Far So Fast, Where is Her Head, Rylan, some of the piano ballads.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

This all started with TWFM as far as I can tell. Ever since then, most all their songs are either an understated nice piano ballad, an artsy indie song that starts quiet and builds to a more uptempo outro, and then some rock songs (hardly any of those on here tho).

HV was the perfect midpoint, introducing the orchestral and electronic elements and lightening their sound while being just as amazing as Boxer and Alligator.

Album Rating: 4.0

Doof, here’s the thing: most of the “excellent” songs here are still not excellent National songs.

Album Rating: 3.5

Sleep Well Beast took the longest to grow out of any of their albums so there's a little bit of long term investment reward associated with it. Thanks Talons.

This album blew me away immediately and I expressed concern about that which is turning out to be justified. Every subsequent listen has been slightly less amazing. It's basically the anti-SWB; unless I find a way to emotionally relate to this I could see it growing off.

Album Rating: 4.0

i still haven't rly got into SWB

Album Rating: 2.0

Me neither, I thought 15-ish spins would be enough but that one remains elusive.