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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2094 in Music
• Released on: 2007-05-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

CD Description
'Boxer' is the fourth album from New York based quintet, The National. Produced by the band themselves with help from Peter Katis (Spoon, Interpol) and Fred Kevorkian (Ryan Adams,Regina Spektor), the album sees Matt Beringer and co. continue with the brooding indie rock of their highly praised 2005 release 'Alligator', while fleshing out the sound with orchestral accompaniments. The album includes guest appearancesfrom Sufjan Stevens, Marla Hansen and Australian composer Padma Newsome.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding
According to Paul Banks, "New York cares", but the tales that The National seem to create in `Boxer' paint a somewhat different picture of the big apple. Most likely tales about being away from New York and losing touch with friends (`Green Gloves' contains the lyrics "Falling out of touch with all my/friends are somewhere getting wasted/ hope they're staying glued together/ I have arms for them", which are some of the most significant lyrics in the record). Matt Berninger's soothing yet "very, very frightening" vocals are the setting for the record, giving everything else something to stand on, and create on. The lyrics that he puts across are quite simply, incomparable.

Similar to the first time you hear The Smiths, you don't recall hearing anything so subtle, anything that tells such a realistic tale of some modern day touches. The first lines in `Boxer' tell their own story, and win the listener over instantly with their charm, "Stay out super late tonight/ picking apples, making pies/ put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us" manage to put an apt image into your head, rebellion. And Berninger instantly becomes expert, sharp and most notably, cool.

When listening to `Boxer' you can sometimes feel the need to become Berninger. All his tales of drunken mistakes, the honesty that he portrays in his lyrics, he seems like a fictional character, someone that you'd dream of being. Almost an idol in his own right. But this record isn't all about his talent. Rarely is an album so easy to listen to, so easy to understand, so comforting. Unlike the previous record, The National seem at home here, more at rest than you might be when you first hear it all. Most songs contain driven piano and precise instrumentation but `Mistaken For Strangers' keeps all of this while rocking out at the same time, it's quite possibly the strongest track out of all 12.

However `Slow Show' may well come through as the piece of music that jumps itself higher than the rest, a simple tale of mistake suddenly turns into a love song with a change of chords as well as theme, "You know I dreamed about you/ for twenty-nine years before I saw you" manages to do more to you than other lyrics in the song, being something that a listener who has experienced love could fully relate to. Previously mentioned opener `Fake Empire' does the same, it contains a charm in it which could make itself likable to anybody if they tried hard enough.

In the second half of the record, it drifts off into its own world, with the possibility of making the listener feel out of place. But this only means that the listener has more to discover. Classical guitar flows beautifully in `Ada' and the delicate touch of `Gospel', which closes the record, sums up that this is a personal collection of songs which all blend with eachother to create an album of sophisticated importance, something to merit forever. Sure the kids won't find much in it, but just unveil it to them when they've discovered love, tuxedos and wine.

Unadulterated Pop Pleasure
I have to say that everyone who I've played this record to has liked it - which can't be said for almost all the rest of my collection. For some that might be a bad thing - but yes The National have universal appeal, and that's really not all as bad as it seems. They actually have some substance here, something intelligent is going on and the attentive listener will be able to pick out those moments of pure unadulterated pop pleasure. The second track, `Mistaken For Strangers' has a sophisticated charisma that is rarely found in indie music, (where most bands think that if they sing in metaphor about something as clichéd as the idea of taking down the system from within/without etc. and hope no-one notices the obvious irony) - Berninger helped by his strong voice, sings with a sense of knowing fatigue, which after several listens starts to make the track become gradually more and more depressing. So when you hear the lyrics `Oh you wouldn't wanna an angel watching over / Surprise, surprise they wouldn't wanna watch' you get the sense that this a man who has reached maturity and given up hoping for anything better to come along. In fact there's an overwhelming weariness on this album. They are songs, which focus mainly on the past, on memories, on wasted opportunities in cities without hope. But despite all that, they are songs which stick in your head, the kind of songs that you remember different things about your own life to - `Slow Show' is probably my favourite love song, without being sentimental that I've heard this year. This is an album, which requires repeated listens to really appreciate the splendour of the whole thing, but maybe it's only because of the situations of those repeated listens that it means so much to me, either way, it's not an album I'll be hiding away any time soon.

Highlights: Mistaken for Strangers, Squalor Victoria, Slow Show

Awesome
This is easily the best album I've heard this year, or in recent years for that matter (its up there with Tv on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain),the songs Fake Empire, Mistaken for Strangers,Apartment Story and Start a War and the rest have reaffirmed my belief in music and that there is actually an intelligent,mature band making music to get excited about.People have mentioned them sounding like Arcade Fire, I think its more a case of sharing some of the same influences really. I'd say they sound a little bit like Leonard Cohen singing with Interpol(bass and drum sound-wise),with elements of Pulp, Joy Division and Springsteen(Nebraska). But the great thing is they don't sound too much like any of those bands,but have a very subtle,unique sound that is the best thing I've heard since Funeral.