The National – Trouble Will Find Me
4AD
★★★★
At their best, the National is like a resting heartbeat: intuitive, perfect. But like a heartbeat, their slow burn can get overlooked in a noisy world. This, however, is their most immediately vital work in years. Theirs is still a worn and eternally fatalistic kingdom. But on the soaring wings of songs like “I Should Live in Salt,” “Don't Swallow the Cap,” “Graceless” and the thunderingly noble “Sea of Love,” it’s a place of impossible beauty, a place where atmospheric nuance is somehow capable of infinite magnitude and drama. Perhaps the most redeeming success story in all of indiedom, the National is the surest sign that the world, in the end, isn't completely fucked.
