Description:T
T
0
0
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 voiT
T
0
0
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
"The National - Mistaken for Strangers
You have to do it running but you do everything that they ask you to
'Cause you don't mind seeing yourself in a picture
As long as you look far away
As long as you look removed
Showered and blue-blazered
Fill yourself with quarters
Showered and blue-blazered
Fill yourself with quarters
You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends
When you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery Citibank lights
Arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing unde"
kayipotoban added this to a list 3 months, 3 weeks ago
Explore
Join Listal
Movies
TV Shows
DVDs
Music
Books
Games
Lists
Reviews
Images
23 comments
Listal's 100 Albums To Listen Before You Die
100 Favorite Songs
100 Best Albums Of 2000's (With Favourite Tracks)
30 Day Song Challenge
