The National - Boxer

The National — Boxer 

180-gram vinyl 45 RPM double LP

16-bit / 44.1kHz digital master to analog console to lathe

Sourced from the original master tape

Limited to 3,000 numbered copies

Pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing

Stoughton Printing gatefold jacket

Mobile Fidelity's 180-gram 45 RPM double LP set plays with widescreen immediacy and precise detail

"Another un-innocent, elegant fall into the un-magnificent lives of adults." That lyric distills the thematic essence of Boxer, a breakthrough that transformed The National from a respected indie act into one of the 21st century's foremost bands. Replete with literary narratives, widescreen arrangements, and mysterious beauty, the album addresses issues of domesticity, maturation, and escapism with equal parts stark honesty and clever wit. Stately, rich, and intimate, it's more relevant today than it was upon release in 2007.

Sourced from the original masters, strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity's 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP set presents Boxer in audiophile sound for the first time. The wider grooves of this exclusive 45 RPM pressing lend to improved tracking, precise detail, and high-frequency preservation.

Distinguished with superb groove definition and ultra-quiet surfaces, the collectible reissue captures the group's chamber textures, rhythmic pacing, brassy accents, and minimalist architecture with immediacy, depth, and balance. Black backgrounds practically place The National on an intimate stage in your listening space. At long last, the airiness, directness, and atmospherics the National generates at its acclaimed live shows can be experienced on record.

And as far as the New York-by-way-of-Cincinnati quintet is concerned, there's no better place to start than Boxer. Not only did it elevate the band's status, it cultivated the members' understanding of one another and, however difficult the journey, developed their chemistry. Faced with the perfectionist tendencies and individual preferences of two sets of brothers, and forced to contend with singer Matt Berninger's unhurried lyric-writing pace, the National forged Boxer out of contention and frustration. The fact the recording process was being chronicled for the documentary film A Skin, A Night likely didn't help matters.

However, in retrospect, it likely did. Boxer is the cohesive, skilled, authoritative work of a fully functioning band whose interpersonal and professional relationships come through in the music. You can hear the evidence in siblings Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner's evocative guitar passages and elegant piano lines; in brothers Scott Devendorf and Bryan Devendorf's shifting time signatures, jazz-inflected directions, and simmering rhythms; in Berninger's reserved vocals, repeated phrases, and musky baritone. They all combine to make the impressionistic stories about anxieties, doubts, self-loathing, compromising, pretending, and playing roles all the more real.

As do the tasteful orchestral, brass, and string accents performed by a cast that includes Padma Newsome (violin, viola, organ), Sufjan Stevens (piano), and Thomas Bartlett (keyboards, accordion). The tastefully appointed fanfare works in give-and-take manner with Berninger's vocals, the moody melodies, and open spaces that signal hesitation, disgust, melancholy, disillusion, complacency. Boxer invites you to step inside dreams that may or may not exist, wander about, and take or leave what you please.

Songs function as cocoons, aural wraps and internal conversations necessary for navigating unrewarding jobs, social pressures, uncertain relationships, and fake empires while holding tight to a shred of dignity. Amid understated soundscapes that remain impossibly gorgeous even if they turn gloomy, protagonists confront situations in which they become unrecognizable to those who know them ("Mistaken for Strangers"), sleepwalk through false worlds ("Fake Empire"), try to sell themselves on soul-sucking work ("Squalor Victoria"), and battle with lovers ("Start a War").

Relief from the tensions, disappointments, and bitter realizations comes from dressing up home situations and bonding with empathetic partners. The warm comfort of "Slow Show," the reassuring spark of "Apartment Story," the simple enchantment of the wondrous "Gospel." For all its seeming malaise, Boxer resonates with a blend of cautious joyousness, hopeless romanticism, and propulsive self-awareness. It is, in effect, a balm.

"Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo for hours," Berninger sings, embracing the remedy that is music listening. "While it sings to itself, or whatever it does."

 

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

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