For some, this fourth album by The National will be their most beautiful. Their most accomplished. A work that is certainly a little less spectacular and immediate than its predecessors. The band's songwriting has been refined with instrumentation of extreme sophistication (some will undoubtedly speak of "classicism"); the best example: the stripped-down beauty of the delicious "Start a War" and an inevitable but not insignificant given: Matt Berninger has probably never sung so well. In short, delight through successive small touches.