Album Review: The National, "Boxer" (Beggars Banquet)

The National crafts mood music. In the span of four albums and an EP, the New York-based group has created a niche of elegant and dark, atmospheric rock bolstered by vocalists Matt Berninger's languid baritone and everyman poetics.

These are the 21st century blues for those who grew up in the '80s; a worldview framed by three decades worth of anxiety, mild paranoia and disappointment. A vision fully, and flawlessly, realized on the group's third and previous album, "Alligator."

Two years later, The National returns with "Boxer," a slow burner and natural follow up to "Alligator" that riffs and expands on the same themes and motifs. For the most part, minus a track or two, "Boxer" moves at a steady pace, creating an experience best taken as a whole. And that whole is one of the best albums released thus far in 2007.

On tracks such as "Fake Empire" and "Mistaken for Strangers," Berninger's lyrics paint a picture representative of the themes that have always covered The National's overall atmospheric viewpoint. If ever there was a contemporary rock band that so eloquently--and subversively--summed up the fears, anxieties and worries of a generation, The National is it.