Okay, quite a few weeks ago I vowed to, every week, talk about an album that meant something to me that particular week, for whatever reason. But right after that week I had my exams and stuff, so I had to kick some stuff a few weeks back. Now though, I will resume it, with none other than “Boxer” by The National.This album has been hyped up considerably here on Mog, and has made quite a few appearances on the best of the 2007 so far list Dale is compiling (if you haven’t yet, be sure to send in your list), and basically rightfully so. Grim and melancholic much like Interpol and Editors, but as those two are completely different from each other (forget the media and trust me), this band takes their own turn on melancholy as well. No dancefloor anthems like Editors, no impending doom and hopelessness like Interpol, but it is a quieter take, though the drumline is always considerably present, but not to dance too. It is a slowed down grimness, with not the hopelessness of Interpol, but a certain lostness.And maybe that is also why it perhaps is a good thing they don’t aim for dance anthems or soaring guitar work or the big sound other bands do, because the theme of this album very much is the transition from youthfulness and the ideas and thoughts that go with that, to adulthood, being a responsible somebody who has to try to earn money and lead a good and respectable life.“Fake Empire” is piano heavy, and leans on the gloomy voice of singer Matt Berninger. He croons “We’re half awake in a fake empire”, and the line “lets not try to figure out everything at once” seems to be a message to himself, as if to keep that in mind when singing the rest of the songs. More rocking than “Mistaken for Strangers” it doesn’t get on this album, very much a song where the theme shines through. About someone who now is “showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters” and is thus mistaken for a stranger by his own friends. He lost his individuality, and became an automaton of society. It ends with “another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults”.Then on to the gloomy “love” song “Brainy”, which is about love, but it seems to be about an obsessive kind. Then the deliciously sing-along “Squalor Victoria”, as the chorus you got to scream along to. It seems to me to be about someone tossed into adulthood but when part of it, sees how wrong and how sleazy that world is. “Green Gloves” looks like someone losing touch with his old friends, but longing for those days again and hoping that one day they will return.With “Slow Show” the album reaches one of its highlights. It seems, to me, about someone who knows with whom he wants to spend his life with, but he is afraid he will screw it up and lose her or never even get her. The last two verses are the same, beginning with “You know I dreamed about you, for twenty-nine years before I saw you”. “Apartment Story” is the next song, about a young couple turning into an adult couple, leaving the love behind as they head into adult life.“Start a War” is about a break-up, and the other person seemingly not interested in a “good break-up” but rather wants to sneak out of it and never look back, discarding the other person. “do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting, lock it up and leave”. Kicking in with drums, “Guest Room” perhaps embodies the album’s theme as good as any other song, with “We miss being ruffians, going wild and bright”. It’s about wanting to break out of the regular routine of adulthood and be young and free again and to have ideas of your own again. “Racing Like a Pro” is an old friend talking to a woman that went corporate, breaking with the ideas, thoughts, and perhaps friends of old to shoot up the career ladder. “Your mind is racing like a pro, now, oh my god it doesn’t mean a lot to you”. Sung slow and full of regret for the loss of that person(‘s soul). “Ada” is next up, perhaps about someone turning her back on the narrator now that she found a more interesting and upper class crowd to spend time with. The drumline is quite there in the background, giving it the right atmosphere. Closing off is “Gospel”, perhaps the least inspired song of all.“Boxer” is one of the highlights of this year so far. The writing is inspired, especially focusing on the loss of your individuality and youthfulness when the time comes to blend in with adult life. The songs are gloomy and wonderful, embodying the lost feeling a lot of people have between 20 and 30. The band sounds good, the voice of the singer deliciously grim and often full of regret. Without dancefloor anthems The National might never reach a great public or headlining festival slots, but it will find the lost and sits with them on the couch talking about the stuff that is on their mind.