The National

I Am Easy to Find

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.

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.

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.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A strangely flat album.