I Am Easy to Find

The National - I Am Easy to Find
Critic Score
Based on 43 reviews
2019 Ratings: #202 / 805
Year End Rank: #33
User Score
Based on 920 ratings
2019 Rank: #493
Liked by 57 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
A.V. Club
The National’s never been afraid to dial things down, but it’s rarely sounded as vulnerable as it does here—song after song, Dessner’s vibrant, moody arrangements serve to reflect Berninger’s precarious balance of hope and frustration.
100
The Skinny
The indie stalwarts' eighth full-length is a thrillingly ambitious, deeply collaborative game-changer.
95
Northern Transmissions

‘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.

90
XS Noize

The music is reinventive while still maintaining the bands signature style and Matt Berninger remains one of indie rocks greatest lyricists, even when other voices are singing his words.

90
Paste

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.

90
Spill Magazine

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.

90
Exclaim!

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.

90
Albumism

A profound sense of humanity and collective consciousness roots I Am Easy To Find in something bigger than our individual stories and selves.

90
The Line of Best Fit

The nature of the project is in a way their own noble experiment, ultimately finding them at their boldest and most assured to date.

85
Earmilk

A 16-track album assembled like a film- a culmination of their signature sounds and more recent electronic experiments.

82
Sputnikmusic

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.

80
Mojo

Ultimately, it's a record filled with beauty that tries to do what therapy does: sort through a mess of emotions and reorganise them into something that makes more sense.

80
The Guardian
It’s an album you can come away from unable to hum a single bar, but so captivating you want to return to it immediately.
80
FLOOD Magazine

With I Am Easy to Find, they stray outside the boundaries of anything they’ve done before.

80
The Sydney Morning Herald

The stunningly good I Am Easy To Find works as a continuing conversation; a confluence of conversations actually, as if caught midstream by a listener dropping in on long-running episodes.

80
Record Collector

As an exercise in breaking with consistency, I Am Easy To Find shows The National remain open to new possibilities after all.

80
Q Magazine

[It takes a while] for the songs to emerge out of the mist. When they do, they stand among the band's best work.

80
The Irish Times

This shapeshifting record roots around the DNA of The National, acknowledging that to live is to exist in anxiety, but they give us a myriad of ways to lose ourselves, if only for a moment.

80
Evening Standard

To see a band pushing further, dramatically changing the formula this far into their career, is a beautiful thing.

80
RIOT

While its loss of introversion might distance it from some, its scope and its bravery make it the band’s biggest step forward yet, and one which has to be – if not universally loved, then unequivocally admired.

80
Clash

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.

80
PopMatters

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.

80
NME
‘I Am Easy To Find’ is not a hit parade. It’s not a background record. It’s not something for cherry-pick streaming. It’s bigger than that. It’s The National opening up their world to everyone, and you should probably join them.
80
No Ripcord

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.

80
DIY

There’s plenty here to push The National’s sound forwards and stave off stagnation.

80
American Songwriter

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.

80
Rolling Stone
Like the short movie, it doesn’t offer any morals or profound truths. Just beauty, and an invitation to savor it while you can.
80
Slant Magazine

The National’s widest-ranging and most surprising effort to date.

80
Loud and Quiet

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.

76
Pitchfork

With a cast of female vocalists guiding and redirecting the songs, the National’s eighth album is their largest, longest, and most daring.

70
Spectrum Culture

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.

70
The Young Folks

I Am Easy to Find is both a bit of what we know, and a bit of what we’d never expect from The National.

70
AllMusic

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.

70
musicOMH

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.

68
GIGsoup

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.

67
Consequence of Sound

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.

60
The Telegraph

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.

60
The Independent

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.

40
Dork

While it’s not a bad album, it is a dull and boring affair for them with the album lacking any real charisma.

40
The Needle Drop

I Am Easy to Find returns to the dullness of The National's early 2010s output.

40
The 405
Perhaps it was the ostentatious recording cycle, but this is The National playing at being The National, starting with skeletal rubrics of what they “should” sound like, and not bothering to go much further. They’ve been many things, but never complacently dull.
amygoodall
75

good
y'all just lame

usedtobe
95

"And I will not come back the same."

A career spanning two decades and seven records in, the eight studio record from indie rock stars could be intimidating at first glance, clocking at 63 minutes and their longest record to date with a plethora of fine female vocalists, this new one could be one of their boldest, sweeping work to date. The inclusion of shifting perspectives and voices with the presence of Carin Besser, Berninger's writing partner and wife is keenly embedded ... read more

SnowyFighter
69

If you’re easy to find can I text you all and go golfing with you guys

Idk why I randomly decided to not listen to this album and finish my dive of The National, but since they released their new record I figured it was about time. I Am Easy to Find is a pretty good listen. It’s pretty bloated though, and there are some things that are holding me back from loving it. Some songs feel a little too long, and the textures can be kinda one note. BUT songs like But Had Your Soul With ... read more

haramthug
96

Their second best album came out directly after their best album, how does this happen.

86

12/16. Fav Tracks: You Had Your Soul With You; Quiet Light; Roman Holiday; Oblivions; I Am Easy To Find; Light Years

Houdanny
44

Not beating the most mid band ever allegations anytime soon.

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Added on: March 5, 2019