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PO: The National - Sleep Well Beast


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55 minutes ago, Eliminator Jr. said:

Blue copy showed up today, happy to see it's translucent. As always with me and The National this album will need a lot of rotation to start and slowly sink in. But they always do. 

Wait, it's translucent?  That's crazy.  The description and mockup totally looked opaque.  Excellent to hear though.

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12 minutes ago, GhostTrail said:

Hmmm - I wonder if there's a separate European press that's translucent? I saw a post from Underdog Records in Germany and theirs was definitely translucent, but all the other posts I've seen certainly look opaque.

That would match what happened with High Violet - EU was translucent purple, US was opaque purple.

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Mine showed up today and I'm really not feeling the first disc.  The back half was much better, but still kind of feels like The National Lite.  I'm not opposed to a band experimenting with their sound, I just really don't think the direction they went in worked worked for me.  This is based one one listen though.  It might grow on me and I'm more than willing to give it a more chances.  Trouble never quite connected with me either, but I've grown to like it more than I initially did.

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26 minutes ago, jonrawks said:

Mine showed up today and I'm really not feeling the first disc.  The back half was much better, but still kind of feels like The National Lite.  I'm not opposed to a band experimenting with their sound, I just really don't think the direction they went in worked worked for me.  This is based one one listen though.  It might grow on me and I'm more than willing to give it a more chances.  Trouble never quite connected with me either, but I've grown to like it more than I initially did.

The slow songs blend together on the first few listens. Keep listening. Around listen 4 or 5, I started to separate the tracks better and hear what each was doing differently. Dark Side of the Gym has become my favorite song and I wouldn't have been able to tell you a single lyric or melody from it if you asked me about it after the first few spins.

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Ok, so... on first listen... I wasn't blown away. Some stand-outs for sure but compared to previous albums, it doesn't seem like it fully holds up. The National are a cut above the rest in general, and I love Matt's voice so every song was "good", but there wasn't enough "great" on first listen to really excite me. I'm hoping it grows on me when I do a headphones listen. 

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10 minutes ago, Kanye West said:

Ok, so... on first listen... I wasn't blown away. Some stand-outs for sure but compared to previous albums, it doesn't seem like it fully holds up. The National are a cut above the rest in general, and I love Matt's voice so every song was "good", but there wasn't enough "great" on first listen to really excite me. I'm hoping it grows on me when I do a headphones listen. 

Check back in after you've listened to it 4-5 times.

 

This one is a different kind of grower than other National albums, as a majority of the songs build slowly, use very simple vocal melodies, and are driven by the drums & electronic layers rather than drums & shimmering Dessner guitars. IMO, once you start telling the slow songs apart from each other, you realize they are just as great as the obvious faster songs and have their own jittery, unsettling bite to them even though they're a bit stripped down.

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