Sleep Well Beast (2017)

Sleep Well Beast is the seventh studio album by the American indie rock band The National, released on September 8, 2017, by 4AD. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2018.

Promotion

On May 9, and May 10, 2017, the National's Twitter page tweeted out two short audio teasers, one from the title track and the other from the lead single, "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness".

Singles

The first single from the album, "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness", was released on May 11, 2017, alongside the album's announcement. The second single, "Guilty Party", was released on June 28, 2017. A third single, "Carin at the Liquor Store", was released on August 8, 2017, followed by the fourth, "Day I Die". on August 29. The fifth single, "I'll Still Destroy You", was released on October 23, 2017.

Packaging and marketing

The artwork for Sleep Well Beast consists of a black and white photograph, shot by Graham MacIndoe, of the side of a barn in Hudson Valley, New York dating back to the 18th century, bought by the guitarist Aaron Dessner and rebuilt as the album's recording studio. MacIndoe also took numerous photographs of the band during recording sessions for the album inserts. Andrea Trabucco-Campos and Elaynna Blaser-Gould, with partner Luke Hayman, of the British design firm Pentagram, were the art directors for the album's packaging.

Unusually, Pentagram also created the branding and identity for Sleep Well Beast and the band, including a corporate standards manual. Additionally, they created the marketing campaign to highlight and play on the album's themes of politics, society and propaganda as "a bit of a joke". The album and branding use the Grotesque-based font Maison with a predominantly blue and white-based color palette. From the cover, the barn was condensed into a pentagon used as the branding's logo, subdivided into two squares and triangles implemented within the design and branding, even in the artwork itself, as an allusion to corporate branding.

The marketing campaign was executed in several ways. The band's label, 4AD, partnered with the design company Diabolical to create a mural for the album in Shoreditch, London, containing a lyric from "Day I Die". Four music videos – "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness", "Guilty Party", "Carin at the Liquor Store" and "Day I Die" – were directed by Casey Reas prior to the album's release, included in video billboard advertisements released in Times Square, London and Copenhagen. Band merchandise included the branding for the album, specifically the pentagon logo.

Elyanna Blaser-Gould, Luke Hayman and Andrew Trabucco-Campos were nominated for Best Recording Package at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.

Reception

Sleep Well Beast received widespread acclaim from music critics. On Metacritic, which assigns an average score out of 100 to reviews and ratings from mainstream music critics, the album received an average score of 85 based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

In The Observer, Kitty Empire described Sleep Well Beast as an exponent of "the tension created by the hyper-musical brother duos, pacing the cage of what 'rock band' means with increased vigour. It often adds up to a subtle, grown-up take that still leaves space for drama."