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.
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:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
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... more info
