The National haven’t made a bad album since finding their groove on Alligator, but 2017’s Sleep Well Beast never quite clicked completely. The band sounded a little bit bored and agitated, and the electronic frippery only highlighted the aimlessness. They were bound to make something unremarkable at some point. It happens. But the National have made a full recovery with I Am Easy to Find, on which frontman Matt Berninger shares the microphone with a host of guest vocalists (including Sharon Van Etten, Mina Tindle and Kate Stables) who sing new and soaring life into the National’s slow-building epiphanies.

by Chris Stamm