I Am Easy To Find/ The National - alternative rock

By Narendra Kusnur

Album: I Am Easy To Find
Artiste: The National
Genre: Alternative rock, indie-rock
Label: 4AD
Rating: *** 1/2

In case you haven't heard Matt Berninger, vocalist of American band The National, rest assured he has one of the best singing voices of the post-2000 era. Yes, some may feel his delivery style is similar to Leonard Cohen, but there's something unique and fascinating about him.

Berninger now leads The National on its eighth solo album I Am Easy To Find. He goes in for a twist this time, inviting a number of female vocalists to join him in duets. Yet, despite a few great songs, the 16-track venture falls short in some ways.

To begin with, at 64 minutes, I Am Easy To Find isn’t too easy to decipher, a few numbers being grossly out of place. In terms of consistency, the 2010 album High Violet was far more accurate. Secondly, while doing so many duets, Beringer underplays his own role, almost playing second fiddle at times.

There are the gems, of course, and the multi-instrumental Dessner brothers Aaron and Bryce, and the Devendorf duo Scott and Bryan offer great support. Check out ‘Not In Kansas’, a sort of poetry recitation backed by a guitar motif and featuring a church choir-styled chorus, and the addictive ‘Roman Holiday’, a duet with the talented Gail Ann Dorsey.

Or there are ‘Oblivions’, featuring the sublime voice of Mina Tindle, and ‘Rylan’, which displays the vintage National style. Also worth checking for their tightness are ‘Hairpin Turns’ and ‘Hey Rosie’. The solitude-driven ‘Quiet Light’ has the lines “But I'm learning to lie here in the quiet light, while I watch the sky go black to grey, Learning how not to die inside a little every time, I think of you and wonder if you are awake.”

On the flip side, the album opener ‘You Had Your Soul With You’ is a tad commercial, using a distorted sound that jars. ‘So Far So Fast’ and ‘Dust Swirls In Strange Light’ could have been done away with to make the album tighter.

The album release has been accompanied by the 24-minute film I Am Easy To Find, directed by Mike Mills and featuring Alicia Vikander. It's a smart add-on, though it isn't necessary viewing in order to appreciate the album. The main thing here is Berninger’s voice, and though it’s in perfect shape, you wish he had used it a bit more.