Album Rating: 4.0

My rebuttal I guess would be that it’s impossible to refine perfection. :-/ But I felt like Sleep Well Beast did a superb job of adding a handful of new twists to their sound while still doing everything they did before at near the same level. This is their ballads album I guess - though Sleep Well Beast was pretty ballad-y too...but had way better ballads (“Born To Beg” and “Empire Line” are super underrated and feel more emotionally open while “Guilty Party”, “Carin At the Liquor Store” and “Dark Side Of the Gym” are all just completely heart wrenching, one of the best runs of their career), and balanced them out much better by building up to them with the stadium rock songs and atmospheric numbers in the first half and the noodly (but expertly so) tracks in the second half. That album was pretty immediate to me too, it took some months for me to 5 it but by this point I was already pretty sure it was 4.5 quality.

I fall into that latter category too, I just don’t feel like the songs are there. I’ve listened upwards of 10 full times and won’t be stopping any time soon but bottom line is this is not quite there for me; and that’s ok!

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

Ehh, idk. I find this far less ballady than SWB. But then again my favorite (TWFM) is very ballady too. So idk. Maybe this album breaks my stances and makes me contradictory at some point, but sonically this is just so gorgeous to me that if you were to ask me if this was their longest album I’d say no, in fact I’d probably give that award to SWB. But I guess keep sticking with it. I know they’re a grower but to me this clung to me just as fast as TWFM did and maybe I’m partial to that album much the way I am Sunbather. But 2013 was just such an epic year for me. And this album making me relive 2013 in the best way possible was just a wink and a nudge to me. It delivered every way possible that an album such as Father of the Bride did not, despite VW being a 2013 bop.

But idk. I just fucking love this thing and I can’t really explain it. But yeah, cliche as it may be and a total fan not favorite tune, I Need My Girl will always be my favorite National song.

And sure folks could dismiss the interludes, but Her Father in the Pool reminded me of Twilight Princess, and the title reminded me of a callback to It Follows, which might have been totally unintentional, but I got that vibe. Dust Swirls is very hypnotic and reminiscent of Kid A a bit and Underwater reminds me of Thrice’s water EP. So I can even value those quite a bit, whereas most might just write them off as some sort of filler, once again splitting hairs, but everything I’ve mentioned has been of importance to me.

I think whenever you take this thing and analyze it, it’s a lot smarter than it has any right to be, despite being derivative. And to me that is the mark of a smart album. We build and we grow, despite having similar foundations. I mean hell I thought The Pull of You was with Bjork and was surprised it wasn’t.

Like I said I went into this with minimal expectations, and it’s been the shocker of the year. I won’t be surprised if this is my album of the year and somewhere in my top 50 of the decade.

Album Rating: 3.5

I enjoy Not In Kansas a lot. Great track.

Album Rating: 1.0 | Sound Off

This album is such a drag ... I just can't get into it. I was upset that their show in Montréal sold out in 5 minutes, but knowing this is what they will be playing I'm not upset any more.

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

Damn - I Need My Girl is Bottom two on TWFM

Album Rating: 2.5

Um it has like 80 million streams on Spotify whereas the rest of their top 5 has like 10 million combined so I guess you’re wrong again sweetie : )

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

Yeah, and any band who had a Christmas playlist song gets ten times as many plays for that song



Just because they’ve written a rom com/valentines tune doesn’t mean it’s not bottom two on the album. It’s ok. Nowt more.

Album Rating: 2.5

I mostly wanted to point out that that’s weird tbh, via a confrontational joke: where do all those plays come from? Was it in a movie?

Album Rating: 2.5

Oh it was in Entourage or something

apologies for derailing the convo, but i spent years trying to get into boxer and high violet and could not see why everyone was unanimously in love with this band. should i check out their last few releases anyway? i'm not opposed to liking this band, i just don't get it and find them horribly forgettable

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

Robertsona - I don’t think so but it’s just their ‘comparatively mainstream’ romantic tune



I still think it’s a 3.5-4 tune - it’s just I really like TWFM and it’s by far and away a weaker song for me

i promise i'm not trying to be a snobby contrarian, my inability to dig these guys actually frustrates me lmao

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

Checking your taste and you’re allowed not to like this band sure, knock yourself out

Album Rating: 4.2

Rev if you spent years on them they might just not be for you. having said that it took dozens of spins of various albums before one song finally clicked for me and I realised they were great so you never know. I wouldn't go for the previous two albums, maybe try Alligator (my fave) or Trouble Will Find Me (sput's fave) and let them sit with you for a while

sounds good, that's kind of what i was looking for

Album Rating: 4.0

Doof, TWFM is a tough album to rank but Girl is one of my favorites on it, in fact falling in love with it was one of the breakthroughs that led me to finally fall for the album asa whole. But I loved the song without having any idea it was a particularly famous tune from the album - clearly it has something widely appealing to it that just doesn’t work for you for whatever reason.

Row, not gonna argue with you necessarily but what makes you say TWFM is the Sput fave? The album averages certainly disagree but even those aside I’d say Boxer or High Violet is their most universally loved here.

Album Rating: 4.2

I hadn't looked at the averages honestly but it feels a lot more loved than High Violet recently in the threads and definitely seems to be the general "decade fave". I guess not more so than Boxer overall but yeah. I'm not saying I agree by any means but I thought Rev would want to be steered in that direction

Album Rating: 3.0

High Violet definitely seems like much more of a fave here to me.

Album Rating: 4.0

Fair, was just curious why you felt that way.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Boxer and Alligator are the site's faves, followed by HV at a close third. Those three are at least two whole decimal points higher than TWFM or any of their others. The rating averages are what define the site's favorites, not the comments.

There are thousands of silent users on the site who mainly rate albums and keep track of new releases, whereas the number of regular commenters like us are like less than 10% that number.

If you go by the small community on sput of people like us who socialize, then it might also seem like MAYH or GR would be site's favorite Opeth album, but like with The National, the ratings show that SL and BWP are far and away the favorites of the site's users overall.