Boxer
Artist(s):
The National
Label: Beggars Banquet
Publisher(s):
Beggars Banquet
Studio: Beggars Banquet
Manufacturer: Beggars Banquet
Binding: Audio CD
MPN: 80252
List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $9.98
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Track Listing
1.
Fake Empire
2.
Mistaken For Strangers
3.
Brainy
4.
Squalor Victoria
5.
Green Gloves
6.
Slow Show
7.
Apartment Story
8.
Start a War
9.
Guest Room
10.
Racing Like a Pro
11.
ADA
12.
Gospel
Editorial Reviews
Album Description
The follow-up to 2005's "Alligator" is filled with lush arrangements and sees the band incorporating new instrumentation and expanded musical elements such as piano, trumpet, and more prominent background vocals.
Amazon.com
With Boxer, the National have reached four albums into their increasingly lauded career, never hurrying the tempo, never over-reaching in volume or instrumental density. Instead, the quintet's balanced on a pin, emotionally austere, if not utterly downhearted, finding brilliantly dusky ways for Matt Berninger's lovelorn voice to mesh with a pair of unobtrusive guitars and, here, an occasional phalanx of piano, horns, and strings. The tunes roll off slowly, Berninger's lyrics hugging the instruments with a sad brawn, rough-hewn as the drums and bass toy with angularity (try "Mistaken for Strangers," for one) but end up woven by that voice. Drummer Bryan Devendorf presses the songs forward repeatedly, as on "Start a War," where he gently thumps the time as the acoustic guitars frame and dot the melody, coalescing as the drums starkly chisel the melody. Nary a distortion pedal is harmed on Boxer, giving the National a magnetism so forlorn that you can't stop listening. --Andrew Bartlett
Customer Reviews
Brilliant and Understated
As a business professional in my early 30's, this album touched on many moods and thoughts currently bouncing around in my head. Absolutely a great, great, album. Somehow, the esoteric lyrics are spot on regardless of your interpretation of their meaning. Morose, lugubrious, haunting, yet never overly melodramatic...this album grows on you every listen. Of special note: Listen to the drummer. He makes this band.
I Think It's OK
It seems like an OK album but I can't be sure because every time I put it on, I fall asleep.
A great rock album
It's literate, soulful, tuneful. This is music for adults -- in the tradition of Blood on the Tracks and Court and Spark. The songs get better the more you listen to them.
Fire The Drummer(and the mixer)
I bought this on a punt, it was in the supposedly personalized Amazon recommends for you section. If memory serves me the review said it was moody and atmospheric and it's true I'm a moody, melancholic girl when it comes to music but if this is moody and atmospheric then who can tell because it's almost impossible to hear anything other than the relentless, irritating ratter-tat-tat of the generic sounding, very uninspiring drums which are on almost every track. I do suspect there is a fairly beautiful album under them somewhere and I do mean under because for some unfathomable reason the drums are at the front of the mix. On the few tracks where this is not the case the relief is palpable, the music good. I suspect that if someone could strip the drums off this album entirely there would be a gorgeous, sparse yet rich album, did they just get scared by their potential for beauty?
Mediocre Album
I heard The National from their previous album, which I did not like at all. It sounded like half the bands that were popular on the indie scene at that time. But then, I started to find The Boxer on top of all the lists in publications that I liked and respected. Still, with the memory of the last one, I held off. Now, I've finally given it a try, or rather a few tries. Musically, the album is nice. Not great, but nice. It has a lot of melody, atmosphere, and it is envolved enough to not sound simplistic. Vocally, however, it sounds like a mix of Morphine, maybe Nick Cave, but a lot Interpol and She Wants Revenge. Not to say that I dislike any of those groups (except She Wants Revenge, I really dislike them), but it sounds uninspired and copied.
Now I already said I find the album to sound nice, but really, it's hard to remember the songs. Only a couple stick out, but for most of them I had to back-up and listen again to decide if I actually liked it. Most of the time I came up with the same result, "Um, it's alright." It is music to listen to, but not to remember. To add to this, the punchy drums plus the vocals remind me of sub-par Interpol. I just feel like I've heard it all before, by bands that have done it better.
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