‘I Am Easy To Find’ is the sound of The National at their creative peak, with little sign to indicate they’re due to plateau anytime soon.
The nature of the project is in a way their own noble experiment, ultimately finding them at their boldest and most assured to date.
I Am Easy to Find feels like a restart for a band in its 20th year. It might challenge some fans and may not ever grow on others, but more than anything, it proves that the National are not the band you thought they were. They're way more than that.
As has been the case upon nearly every release since Alligator, The National have put out another album that could easily be argued as their best—and it may be easier to make that claim now than ever before.
I Am Easy To Find is the sound of a band growing and expanding, taking a new direction to their music while retaining their essence.
I Am Easy to Find is a National album like no other.
A 16-track album assembled like a film- a culmination of their signature sounds and more recent electronic experiments.
Far from a downer ... I Am Easy To Find crackles with energy. This army of collaborators and Mike Mills’ oddball editing habits seem to have revitalized the band’s willingness to stretch themselves far more than the curated, self-conscious shifts of Sleep Well Beast.
I Am Easy To Find ... sees the band paring their style down while simultaneously further exploring the grand, sacral sounds that have long lurked in their strings.
The National’s widest-ranging and most surprising effort to date.
There’s plenty here to push The National’s sound forwards and stave off stagnation.
With new voices, new avenues of exploration and new lyrical viewpoints, The National, alongside producer-director Mike Mills, once again show their ability to reinvent themselves to produce something that is more than just an album.
With I Am Easy to Find, they stray outside the boundaries of anything they’ve done before.
I Am Easy To Find resembles a closing-down sale, with ideas being thrown around whether they fit or not—even the inclusion of Rylan (first recorded during the High Violet sessions) comes across as a knowing nod.
The National prove with I Am Easy To Find that they don’t need the old bang and clatter to achieve their signature melancholic glory.
The National's eighth album is not as easy to locate or to live with, as its title suggests, but it contains passages of sublime beauty and grace.
With a cast of female vocalists guiding and redirecting the songs, the National’s eighth album is their largest, longest, and most daring.
With its 16 tracks clocking in at 63 minutes, it’s the band’s longest album to date and, despite a smattering of classy highlights, it feels laboured and cumbersome.
I Am Easy to Find has loose ends and picturesque detours in addition to a revolving cast of characters and a suggestion of mess that give the album an appealingly unkempt sense of humanity.
Bolstered by the strongest back half The National have ever recorded, I Am Easy to Find is a much-needed rejoinder to the idea that the band has rested on their laurels, not a return to form but an indication that they are still open to exploring new ideas.
After two decades, the ever-impressive Ohioans open their doors to allow a new perspective to take centre stage. The results are mixed but when they are good, they are rather great.
The National had an incredible streak of great albums throughout the 2000s that propelled them to their current status as one of the biggest indie rock bands, and I Am Easy to Find is another solid addition to their catalog, even if it breaks that streak.
I Am Easy to Find feels like an old friend you’re pleased to keep around – even if, had you been introduced today, you wonder if you’d have been compelled to make the effort.
This is bold, weird, beautiful stuff, but the listener has their work cut out getting to it. Ironically, the core of I Am Easy to Find is not particularly easy to find. At all.
While it’s not a bad album, it is a dull and boring affair for them with the album lacking any real charisma.
I Am Easy to Find returns to the dullness of The National's early 2010s output.
#1 | / | NBHAP |
#6 | / | The Skinny |
#7 | / | Gothamist |
#7 | / | The Key |
#9 | / | Magnet |
#11 | / | Louder Than War |
#12 | / | No Ripcord |
#13 | / | The Alternative |
#14 | / | musicOMH |
#16 | / | Albumism |