THE NATIONAL - The Boxer THE NATIONAL

"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.

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 and Bryce Dessner’s evocative guitar passages and elegant piano lines; in brothers Scott 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.