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" Glance back through The National&amp;#039;s back catalogue and it becomes clear that they&amp;#039;re a band releasing albums in pairs. The self-titled debut and follow-up Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers represented artists finding their feet and figuring out how to be a band; Alligator and Boxer positioned them as best-rock-act-you&amp;#039;d-never-heard-of cult favourites; and now High Violet and latest release Trouble Will Find Me see the Brooklyn quintet cementing themselves in the mainstream. The new LP is very much a companion to its acclaimed 2010 predecessor and, like the band&amp;#039;s previous offerings, gently slow-burns on the first few listens before completely burrowing under your skin and taking hold. On Trouble Will Find Me, frontman Matt Berninger&amp;#039;s lyrics probe familiar themes of romantic yearning, unyielding anxiety and crawling back from rock bottom, but with more clarity and immediacy than ever before. &amp;#039;Demons&amp;#039; wrestles with daily self-doubt before effortlessly segueing into spiky foot-tapper &amp;#039;Don&amp;#039;t Swallow the Cap&amp;#039;, a song propelled by Bryan Devendorf&amp;#039;s trademark tight drumming and a neat turn of phrase (&amp;quot;If you want to see me cry / Play Let it Be or Nevermind&amp;quot;). That awareness of rock &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; roll history has clearly been on The National&amp;#039;s mind of late. Berninger has acknowledged the influence of Roy Orbison (heard here on &amp;#039;Heavenfaced&amp;#039;), but there are shades of Dylan and Springsteen in the stories weaved on Trouble. By the end of &amp;#039;Humiliation&amp;#039; Berninger has slid into a pseudo-cover of &amp;#039;Blue Velvet&amp;#039;, while album closer &amp;#039;Hard to Find&amp;#039; is a proper lighters/phones-in-the-air tinkling ballad that fills stadiums for U2. This is unmistakably a National record, though. &amp;#039;Graceless&amp;#039; is a fast-paced tale of addiction whose guitars distort as Berninger sings of going &amp;quot;through the glass again&amp;quot;; an anthem in the mould of &amp;#039;Abel&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Mr November&amp;#039; that&amp;#039;s destined to become a live favourite. Emotions are worn firmly on sleeves for tracks like &amp;#039;Sea of Love&amp;#039; (which gives the album its title with the lyric &amp;quot;If I stay here, trouble will find me&amp;quot;) and the excellent &amp;#039;Pink Rabbits&amp;#039;. At 13 tracks and clocking in with a running length of 55 minutes, this is the band&amp;#039;s biggest album to date. There&amp;#039;s no filler, although &amp;#039;This is the Last Time&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Slipped&amp;#039; perhaps don&amp;#039;t linger on the mind like the rest. Trouble Will Find Me is both dark and melancholic, uplifting and quietly euphoric - another masterpiece from The National.  Tracks to download: &amp;#039;Don&amp;#039;t Swallow the Cap&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Sea of Love&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Graceless&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Pink Rabbits&amp;#039; If you like this, you&amp;#039;ll like: Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Frightened Rabbit Listen to The National&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Demons&amp;#039; below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/album-reviews/review/a472960/the-national-trouble-will-find-me-album-review/>