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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > The National - Sleep Well Beast
 
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Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
 I heard the album live on Youtube (with passable sound quality) about a month ago. "Walk it Back" is the latest title for their live track "Checking Out of a Collapsing Space" and it still owns, though they've made it one of the most explicitly political songs of their careers (Rove's infamous "reality-based community" speech literally plays over the bridge). "Day I Die" is another good one, and way more hi-tempo than you'd expect from something with that title.

* # ¿ Aug 22, 2017 16:40
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 03:51
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Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

VladimirLeninpest posted:

I don't know if Boxer could ever be topped for me. It keeps such an interesting musical style throughout the entire album without wavering or producing a bad song. If I had to rank the rest, it'd be:

High Violet
Alligator
Cherry Tree
Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers
The Virginia EP
Trouble Will Find Me
The National
Boxer

I really like their first two albums compared to most other people. Their entire first album is especially underrated - Theory of the Crows is easily top 5 National songs.

I'm excited to see where Sleep Well Beast will fall on the list. I've listened to all of the live versions of the songs and they're pretty great, but it'll be interesting to see how they work together on the album. There seems to be a higher ratio of slow songs, which I'm worried may become boring.

"This System..." and "Day I Die" alone have more energy than anything on Trouble Will Find Me. Don't get me wrong, Trouble was amazing, but with the exception of "Sea of Love" and the breakdown of "Graceless" it rarely rose above dirge.

"Turtleneck" is also apparently high-energy, maybe one of the liveliest since "Abel."

* # ¿ Aug 29, 2017 15:26
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Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
 There's a lot more synth noodling on this than in their previous albums. It kind of reminds me of El Vy in places.

Like I thought, Walk It Back is easily one of the best tracks on there if not number one.

The main issue right now is that the four singles and Walk It Back/Dark Side of the Gym (which already had decent live cuts a year ago) are by far the most distinctive songs on there, with the exception of Turtleneck, which is just plain weird. The rest kind of sound interchangeable in how low-key they are. I'm kind of disappointed in the studio cut of the opening track too - in the live version Matt sings the last refrain in this plaintive wail that cuts right to the bone, but here they just layer more post-processing on top of his normal croon. The man's really got to cut loose a little more.

* # ¿ Sep 3, 2017 23:26
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > The National - Sleep Well Beast