Daytrotter's Best 15 Albums of 2007: No. 14 The National's "Boxer"
Jan 2, 2008
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Zack Sultan
How much more monumental and casual, or monumentally casual, can you get than _Boxer_? It's so exquisitely simple in the despression and clinking-empty-glass-ness of its dated or mellowed out harangues that it threatens to just fly off nameless and unknown, like a stranger in the night -- slow dancing into the drunken, black, bottomless pits of forever. Matt Berninger is a voice that doesn't make sadness sound deathly, just inspiringly deep. There are people who can get into a funk and find themselves thinking, "I don't know why, but I just feel off today." They don't really examine it, just hope that they can sleep or eat it off. Usually, that works. _Boxer_ is a ghost that feels like a wind chill -- the cold blue ice can be sensed in Berninger's robust baritone. Though Berninger just married for the first time this year -- after the record was out and a success -- the album has all of the aspects and temperament of a lengthy marriage full of all of the various blips on the map, but mostly it chronicles all of the dalliances with the sour apples and the preoccupation with instability. Even the guardian angels could care less -- "Surprise, surprise/They wouldn't want to watch."
Previously said about _Boxer_ on Daytrotter:
"_Boxer_ starts with Berninger singing, "Stay out super late tonight/Pickin’ apples/Makin’ pies/Put a little somethin’ in our lemonade and take it with us/We’re half-awake in a fake empire," and as it goes, we stay drowsy like the protagonist, but the empire becomes completely real and expressive. There are many characters tethered to others for unavoidable reasons, for reasons that can’t be evaded. They are numerous and the many ways that love can claim possession make regular appearances throughout the record. The way we can appreciate these situations is by understanding that love and the many trappings are mostly vampings and improvisations - similar they only occasionally are. This allows the questions and analysis to go on perpetually and persistently until there’s either a splitting headache or a sense of wonder, such as the one that Berninger and the rest of the group - perfect for one another in their touch and comprehension of how much restraint and drive they might need to accomplish the goal at hand -- give. It’s a journey to the end of the night where, as the Babylonians believed the world was flat, so is that spoken of night. It sits there with a dark, unseen drop-off that you’ll know when you find it because of the pit in your stomach."
*Daytrotter's Best 15 Albums of 2007*
15. John Vanderslice -- _Emerald City_
14. The National -- _Boxer_
"The National Official Site":http://www.americanmary.com
"The National's Daytrotter Session":http://www.daytrotter.com/article/881/free-songs-the-national
