Talk about a slow burn. For me, this album may as well have come out in 2017. The group’s 2010 release High Violet had left me relatively cold (I’ve since warmed up to it) so Trouble Will Find Me didn’t make much of an impact on me beyond the single “Sea of Love” (which had a fantastic video based on a random YouTube video). When Sleep Well Beast got its hooks in me, I decided to revisit Trouble Will Find Me and slowly but surely it came very close to usurping Boxer as my favorite album in their catalog. One thing I really appreciate about Trouble Will Find Me is that it doesn’t sag in the middle. For a band this fussy and committed to musicianship, there is always the risk that things run out of gas in the back half of the album. And that’s precisely where Trouble Will Find Me’s best tracks are tucked away. “Graceless,” “I Need My Girl,” “Pink Rabbits,” all at Track 8 and beyond. That implies that Side A is a killer, and it absolutely is. “Sea of Love,” “I Should Live in Salt,” “Demons.” The National have since drawn out their sound into intriguing new realms, but their last couple of albums have sagged a bit, or needed a bit more editing to be all-timers (cut about 6 tracks from I Am Easy to Find and that album is in the Top 10 but misses entirely because the third track on that album is such a dud it annihilates all momentum). That’s the story of a band getting in their own way, but Trouble Will Find Me is a story of a band firing on all cylinders quietly churning out one of the most rewarding rock records of the decade.
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