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Whistle Stopper - Boxer
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List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $6.66
Your Save: $ 3.32 ( 33% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Beggars Banquet
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0607618025229
Label: Beggars Banquet
Manufacturer: Beggars Banquet
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Beggars Banquet
Release Date: 2007-05-22
Studio: Beggars Banquet
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Boxer
Comment: The National-Boxer ****1/2
Matt Berninger, Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner, Bryan and Scott Devendorf have been slowly perfecting their sound over their past few albums, and with Boxer, I truly feel The Nation have hit on what it is they were aiming to achieve. Complexity meets minimalistic vocals and instrumentation and lyrics to create a feel more than a sound, and an atmosphere may be a better term.
Boxer is an album to get lost in, much like Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess. It is an album to free your mind and just let go with. The opening song 'Fake Empire' is one of the most magnificent gems ever recorded. Both socially conscious and touching. 'Mistaken For Strangers' is uniquely played. 'Squalor Victoria' aside from having, what could be the perfect title, is easily the albums focal point. 'Slow Show' brings the band into new territory, much different then all their previous work. 'Apartment Story' is without comparison.
What may be most surprising is that the most impressive and attention grabbing thing about the album is the drumming. It's fresh, and original in a time of trite, and shopworn musicianship. It helps to push the entire album to that next level.
The National's Boxer is among some of the best music heard since the turn of the century. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good? Yes! Best? Not Nearly.
Comment: Three of the music magazines I read on a regular basis anointed Boxer as the best album of 2007. The panegyrics were so similar, I had to wonder whether the same writer was working for all three magazines. Is Boxer good? Undoubtedly. But is it the best album of 2007? Not nearly.
I own a couple other albums by The National and already owned this at the time of its coronation. When compared to other albums by the band, Boxer comes as quite a surprise. It is lyrically reminiscent of Tindersticks and Arab Strap, but the vocals are mostly in a droning monotone. The music itself can be surprisingly fast-paced in comparison with the vocals, the fact of which can give an impression of dissonance. Strong percussion and spare but excellent orchestration boost its appeal.
I pretty much enjoy the entire album with the exception of Green Gloves, which I do not care for. The best cuts are Mistaken For Strangers, Brainy, and Slow Show. A booklet containing lyrics would have been beneficial, after all The National are as much about their lyrics as they are about their music. What you get instead is an expanded cover insert that contains a few pictures and the usual album information.
With Boxer, The National shows fans that at least they are willing to take musical risks and not keep rehashing the tried and true. And that's a good thing. So while I reiterate that Boxer is not the best of 2007, that doesn't mean its not worth hearing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Goregeous Album
Comment: It's been a while since I've listened to an entire album straight through. Usually, I find a song I really like in the album and enjoy it so much that I can't even concentrate on the following tracks because I'm so eager to get back to it. Here, on this album, I felt like a little kid whose attention can be distracted so easily - every new song that came up became me favorite until eventually I quit trying to mentally hold on to what tracks were the best. I've listened to it through and through a dozen or so times and it's still the same way. I do think, though, that the easiest songs to get into for the average listener are "Apartment Story," "Mistaken for Strangers," and "Fake Empire".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Saw this band live
Comment: and opening for REM and I was blown away. They managed to take a seemingly disinterested arena full of people and transfix them with their melodic, moody music. There is a real senstivity to the lyrics that really resonate. I immediately bought their albums upon returning from that show and their studio productions do not disappoint. Great stuff.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My favorite album in the last 10 years.
Comment: The national took me a few listens to get into, but since I have, I feel amply rewarded. Their music is so true to life - so nice to have music that speaks to someone older than 13. There is not a bad song on the album. Definitely one of the best modern acts. Its bands like this that have restored my faith in modern music.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
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