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London-based quartet The Boxer Rebellion are a comparative rarity in the digital era, building a 15-year career on incremental improvements rather than great leaps forward, admiring glances rather than wide-eyed hype.
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Their fifth album is no great departure from Promises, their 2013 indie-epic, but it does feel much more redemptive.
Tennessee-born singer Nathan Nicholson’s searching falsetto swoops dreamily over heavily-treated guitars, and often the washes of sound build into moments of real grace. The floating ballad Pull Yourself Together will help heal a few wounds, while opener Weapon creates a spectral propulsion.
But there’s a lack of identity. Let’s Disappear is so sub-Maccabees with its delay-pedal guitars, and Big Ideas so much like a less-effective National, they can’t help but suffer from the comparison.
(Amplify)
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