VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MoFi), the leader in high-fidelity audio reissues, is proud to present The National’s 2007 breakthrough album, Boxer, in audiophile sound. Sourced from the original masters (16-bit / 44.1kHz digital master to analog console to lathe), mastered by engineer Krieg Wunderlich, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, MoFi’s numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP set (pre-order HERE) is strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies and available October 9.
“Another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent 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, Boxer is more relevant today than it was upon release in 2007.
The wider grooves of this collectible 45RPM reissue lend to improved tracking, precise detail, and high-frequency preservation that bring the quintet’s chamber textures, rhythmic pacing, and brassy accents forward with immediacy, depth, and balance. Black backgrounds practically place The National on an intimate stage in your listening space. At long last, the airiness, directness, and atmospherics The National generates at its acclaimed live shows can be experienced on record.
Chronicled in the documentary A Skin, A Night, Boxer is the cohesive, skilled, authoritative work of a fully functioning band whose interpersonal and professional relationships come through in the music. Siblings Aaron and Bryce Dessner provide evocative guitar passages and elegant piano lines; Scott and Bryan Devendorf anchor the songs with shifting time signatures and simmering, jazz-inflected rhythms; and Matt Berninger threads the compositions with his reserved phrasing and musky baritone. Tasteful guest contributions from Sufjan Stevens (piano), Thomas Bartlett (keyboards, accordion), and Padma Newsome (violin, viola, organ) enrich the orchestral palette.
Across 12 tracks, protagonists navigate unrewarding jobs, social pressures, uncertain relationships, and false worlds, from the sleepwalking tension of “Fake Empire” and the alienation of “Mistaken for Strangers” to the soul-sucking work of “Squalor Victoria” and the friction of “Start a War.” Balancing that unease are moments of warm comfort and grounded connection—the reassuring spark of “Apartment Story,” the warm comfort of “Slow Show,” and the simple enchantment of “Gospel.”
