Review Rock music

The National

Trouble will Find Me

4AD • 2013

It shouldn’t have been too hard for the band around Matt Berninger to re-invent themselves after their last two records, turning to great concert-halls, making huge gestures the purpose of their songs and becoming the favorite of the masses. There are more than enough examples for this actually working, but The National just reject that seemingly obligatory career-path and stick to their very own way. »Trouble Will Find Me« is probably the most personal record by The National, presumably because they have finally found themselves on their sixth studio album, as Berninger states. »Trouble Will Find Me« is a grounded, grown up album, which manages without big edges and even without huge hits – because that’s not what the boys from Brooklyn do best, anyway. Instead, their records are normally the strongest when they become personal and incredibly melancholy. When Berningers unmistakable baritone arises in heavy pain, when he sings lines like »You didn’t see me I was falling apart,/ I was a television version of a person with a broken heart« (in: »Pink Rabbit«), you’ll feel that he’s turning his most inner side out. The National haven’t become the poster-boys of indie-rock with »Trouble Will Find Me« – not because they couldn’t easily fill that vacancy but because they never felt the need to. Instead, they’re more like themselves than they’ve ever been. And for that we should be thankful from the bottom of our hearts.