Many things make for distractions from both your career and your creative process. It’s been eight years since The Boxer Rebellion’s last album Ghost Alive, a gap that constitutes several ages in music industry terms. Rarely appearing in print, their quietly spoken and thoughtful leader Nathan Nicholson has explained recently that he and the band’s horizons are now more oriented towards making the music they want to, rather than scaling any particular new commercial heights.
That’s a bar which sounds pretty low at face value, but when you think about it, the reverse is true; who can possibly be harder to please when it comes to creative fulfillment than an audience consisting of yourself? Anyone worried, however, that The Second I’m Asleep will float lonely in the ether can rest assured that the quartet’s uber-loyal following will doubtless embrace it enthusiastically – almost a decade of waiting can do that to you.
This isn’t to say that it contains songs about cars and girls. On Satellite Above Nicholson rails against the poison of mirroring ourselves for avaricious, care-not strangers, whilst closer Your Side of Town weaves solemnity and hope with a skill regular listeners will prize. This balancing act – a missing presumed extinct knack for making hushed and healing alternative rock feel relatable again – is best showcased on the anthemic opener Flowers In The Water and Hidden Meanings’ tender toughness, each in their own way confessions to release. For The Boxer Rebellion, absence on this evidence seems to make the heart grow fonder, even when the person you keep impatiently waiting is yourself.
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The Voice Of Unreason 