The National – Boxer (2007)

I remember the first time I ever heard The National quite clearly. In 2008 I was browsing for CDs at a former Helsinki-based record store Popparienkeli. My friend worked there at the time and I often asked him for tips on what to buy. This time he mentioned two albums they had just received second hand. First one was Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut album that had just been released and the other one was Boxer by The National. Boxer had already been something of a breakthrough album for The National in indie circles, but I wasn't following music media frequently enough to have bumped into The National before. I took up the headphones in the record store and listened to both of those albums. I wasn't too impressed by Vampire Weekend's album, but the first time I heard Matt Berninger's melancholic and deep baritone voice, I was already sold.



In the end I ended up buying also the Vampire Weekend album but Boxer I bought straight away. At the time I was really into the so-called post-punk revival genre, but bands such as Interpol or Franz Ferdinand had already released their best albums and the whole genre seemed to be going downhill. The National brought a new flavour into this genre. Instead of fast-tempo guitar riffs, their songs were slower and they had pianos, more melodic electric guitars and just in general, a more innovative approach to sounds. I was really into melancholic music and The National was deliciously sad and dark. I didn't necessarily know it back then, but The National was about to become one of the most important bands to me in a couple of years when High Violet was released and it just clicked in every way to my personal life at that moment.

I've loved The National since I bought this album, but for some reason, their other albums became more important to me. Firstly, I bought the previous album Alligator on vinyl quite quickly after Boxer and for some reason that album spoke to me even more than Boxer. Also, as I already mentioned, High Violet became one of the most important albums in my life in 2010. Later on when I've returned to Boxer, I can't really see why those other two albums caught my attention better, because Boxer was and still is a phenomenal album.

Fake Empire is a great first song, in that it grows beautifully from very quiet to full blasting song adding instruments one at a time. Mistaken for Strangers is more conventional post-punk revival song that sounds quite a lot like Interpol with it's industrial clanking sounds and overdriven guitar riffs. It's the third song, Brainy, that really gives me the shivers. There's something about this melody and in Berninger's voice in this song that just lifts all the hairs in my neck up. When I heard this song in the record store, I knew that I had found something special. I still think that Berninger has almost supernatural quality of singing straight into your brain making you hold on to every note and every word. Squalor Victoria is a great example of how The National can build songs from seemingly incompatible loops of music that intertwine into beautiful sounds together. They also know how to use the bass dramatically. It only comes in at the exactly right moment transforming a song that sounds great but thin into a pleasurable pool of beauty. The National also knows how to make songs that are seemingly light but carry real dark weight on them. Start a War is a song like that. The melody is quite hopeful and light, but there's that looming darkness and melancholy behind the notes that's just waiting to be released at any moment. Racing Like a Pro is a prime example of what The National can do with their melodramatic ballads. I think the band is at its best in these kinds of songs that seem to be drain of all hope, but still depicting just plain beauty of melodies. This is like a modern version of a death mass.

The National entered my life at a time when I hardly ever watched music videos anymore. MTV wasn't really showing music videos anymore and even if there were some channels that showed music videos, they wouldn't show any good music on them. This is why I haven't seen that many music videos by The National. I had to look up one from this album now. In the video for Apartment Story, The National is playing to a party room that could be at a funeral or at someone's birthday party. The crowd is just doing whatever at the beginning of the song, but when the band starts to play, one by one the guests roll to the dance floor and start dancing to the music. This effect normally takes a lot longer. I speak from experience, since I've played in many parties, but the video has picked up that gathering of party guests from their tables to the dance floor quite accurately just on the course of one song.

I'm definitely going to write more personal stories when I deal with other albums by The National, but for now I just have to say that Boxer was my first introduction to their music, but surprisingly it still hasn't been the one album I've been most fond of. Usually I create a personal bond with the first album I hear from a band, but this time it wasn't the case. It's not like there's anything wrong with Boxer, but for some reason the other two albums around it just made a deeper impression.

Listen to the album on Spotify.