HOW do you like your music? Do you like it in bite-sized chunks, broken down easily into single-sized portions and what Nirvana once labelled radio friendly unit shifters?
Do you like it on in the background while you go about your daily tasks or chat with friends?
If the answer to any or all of these questions is yes, then I’m not judging you, honestly I’m not – but then this National album is not for you. If, however, you like your music quietly uplifting and infinitely more rewarding the more times you listen to it, then it most assuredly is.
2010’s High Violet – the record which catapulted this Brooklyn based five-piece into the global spotlight – somehow passed me by, so I approached Trouble Will Find Me with cautious ears, slightly wary of music journalists’ recommendations of obscure US rock.
I needn’t have worried. The National’s sixth album will doubtless follow in High Violet’s footsteps into the end-of-year best of lists, but for good reason.
It is a bombast-free rock record, full of soaring piano and scathing guitar, gentle melodies and even a few anthems – I can imagine Sea of Love especially being sung passionately back at them by adoring fans.
Warm, that’s the word. It’s an album to play again and again and to revel in. It’s not for the background and I can’t hear many crossover hits, but it is absolutely not to be missed.
Thirty three and a third: Record reviews by Andrew Greenhalgh 