Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

The National

Boxer Live in Brussels

Label: 4AD Release Date: 20/07/2018

105723
thats-incentive by Joe Goggins July 20th, 2018

There wasn’t much in the way of fanfare.

A day before the show – which came in the thick of a hefty European tour – The National tweeted out an image of the artwork for their seminal Boxer, mocked up so that it said ‘Brussels’ instead. And then, the next night, they played it, front to back.

Why Brussels? Why not is the answer, you have to suppose; they could’ve done this anywhere. The purpose became clearer earlier this year, when it was confirmed that it hadn’t happened on a whim; instead, it was always intended for a Record Store Day vinyl release. There’s plenty of reasons to take a dim view of what is ostensibly the world’s biggest annual celebration of old-fashioned shops and old-fashioned wax but the only one that’s relevant here is that when genuine one-offs are only made accessible in-store on that arbitrary day in April, lots of people miss out.

You might live miles from your nearest indie, you might be trampled in the online rush when the shops do finally put their leftover stock up on their website, or you might just think, not unreasonably, that camping outside the night before to ensure that you can pick up the releases you’re after is the behaviour of an untold not-right. Whichever scenario you find yourself in, 4AD appear to have bowed to fan pressure and made Boxer Live in Brussels available on CD and digitally for the first time.

So, now, we all get to be at Forest National on the ninth of November last year. The immediate question is to why Boxer was the record to get this treatment, beyond the fact that if you took a poll, it would probably just about nudge ahead of Alligator as the fans’ favourite. The thing is, The National on stage are, and always have been, a very different proposition to The National on record. Look no further for proof than this album’s standout, ‘Squalor Victoria’. First-time listeners to Boxer will hear a simmering rebuke to nine-to-five inertia.

Anybody who’s seen this band live will feel as if the studio version comes to a close just as it’s getting going. After Matt Berninger snarls “this isn’t working, you my middlebrow fuck-up”, the whole band explodes; one Dessner attacks the guitar, and the other delivers a fraught piano line. Behind the kit, Bryan Devendorf oversees a controlled collapse. The brass section swells. Berninger’s impassioned screeches put the seal on it.

‘Mistaken for Strangers’ follows similar thematic lines and sounds equally spiky. ‘Fake Empire’, the opening track that by some estimates is the band’s best-known by virtue of it serving as a de facto anthem for the Obama campaign a lifetime ago, comes to life late on, thanks to a lively turn from the trumpets. Ultimately, though, you can’t help but feel that just because everybody loves Boxer doesn’t mean that it was the National LP that deserved the live release treatment. You find yourself pining for the panoramic drama of High Violet – we’ve all seen that chaotic live take on ‘Terrible Love’- or the controlled nuance that Trouble Will Find Me so deftly dealt in. The back half of Boxer Live in Brussels is slow and measured – great if you were there, but uninspiring after the fact.

![105723](http://dis.resized.images.s3.amazonaws.com/540x310/105723.jpeg)
  • 6
    Joe Goggins's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Girls Names

Stains on Silence

Mobback
105720
105731

The Internet

Hive Mind

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND