Album Review: The Boxer Rebellion - 'The Second I'm Asleep'
The Boxer Rebellion’s ‘The Second I’m Asleep’ — a reflective return from indie’s quietest survivors.
For well over two decades, The Boxer Rebellion have been one of the UK’s most quietly poignant indie bands — the kind of group whose longevity can almost go unnoticed, especially after a five-year stretch without live shows or new material. Since returning, however, the band have thrown themselves back into touring, gracing a sold out hometown show at KOKO in Camden last year and preparing for another imminent London date at Electric Brixton, just ahead of the release of their latest record, ‘The Second I’m Asleep’.
While 2013’s ‘Promises’ may be the album that hooked most fans — alongside the neon-washed, dream-pop, indie-shimmer of 2016’s ‘Ocean by Ocean’, of course — every The Boxer Rebellion release has cultivated its own devoted following, each with its own highlights, atmosphere, and emotional weight. ‘The Second I’m Asleep’, the band’s first album since 2018’s ‘Ghost Alive’, is no different.
It’s a beautiful record, full of ostensibly warm, uplifting tones, yet carried throughout by a sense of longing that runs through vocalist Nathan Nicholson’s heartfelt, almost crooning delivery. Taken as individual moments, the songs often shine; taken as one complete piece, though, the album can feel slightly disjointed — like a therapist’s notes shuffled out of order, each page meaningful on its own but not always forming a clear narrative when read straight through.
Opener ‘Flowers In The Water’ throws you straight into the band’s latest chapter, the anthemic first single from the album wasting no time in announcing the group’s return. Warm guitars and urgent rhythms push the track forward, even as the surrounding soundscape wraps everything in the band’s familiar glow. When Nicholson sings “I gave too much thought to perfect”, it feels both like a reflection on overthinking life and a quiet apology for the band’s absence — although the band sure seem to be making up for that now!
That same warmth continues into ‘The Last Of A Dying Breed’, where gentle, tranquil instrumentation sits beneath Nicholson’s emotive vocals. Even as the guitars begin to swell in intensity, there’s something oddly calming about the track — perhaps why it’s already become a regular fixture in the band’s live set, the only non-single from the album to do so as of yet.
Even ‘Hidden Meanings’, built on falsetto, reverb, and the twinkling guitars that slowly expand as the track unfolds, has some of that same warmth. One moment it feels like a moment of emotional breakthrough, the band breaking free from some cocoon that was trapping them, and the next it’s closer to embodying a samara, a twirling Sycamore seed drifting in the wind. It feels untethered in ways that few The Boxer Rebellion songs do — a list which ironically quickly grows to include the quietly hopeful ‘This House’, a track shaped by its steady drums and stable foundation. Lines like “Regrets […] they are useless” land with the feeling of someone trying to rebuild after things have fallen apart — cautious, a little bit broken, but steadfastly determined.
‘Storm Chaser’, meanwhile, introduces more of a restless edge, its looping guitar chords giving the sense of a track constantly chasing its own hook, an instrumental ouroboros, never quite settling. That unsettled state pervades ‘Satellite Above’, too, where slightly discordant guitar lines and bass grooves mirror Nicholson’s uneasy musings on modern life’s constant demand for attention, hinting at emotional fatigue in a world of instant access and endless noise.
The following pairing of ‘Don’t Leave Yet’ and ‘Perception’, meanwhile feel like a call-and-response caught in the wrappings of the album; the former plays like a hopeful plea, encapsulated in echoing guitars and hazy production, while the latter feels like the answer to it — more definite, more grounded. The warmth that runs through the album remains, but as the duo progresses it feels stronger, triumphant even, especially as the latter’s chorus steadies the former’s earlier uncertainty. And, as the instrumentals bloom outward, there’s hope once more.
Also, what sounds like a woodblock. If a woodblock features on an album, it must be remarked upon. Sorry, don’t make the rules.
As the album ticks over to ‘Second Guess’, though, the mood turns inward again. Falsetto drifts over a bass-heavy foundation, creating a hazy, almost mirage-like atmosphere filled with self-doubt. There’s even a faint trip-hop pulse at times, giving parts of the track a subtle, Massive Attack-like dissonance that adds to its unease.
And, finally, the closer, the ostensible album clincher, of ‘Your Side Of Town’. Honestly? It feels exactly how a ‘The Boxer Rebellion album closer’ should. It’s simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking, harmonious and devastating. Nicholson sounds weary, almost aged by the journey of the record itself, his voice carrying a quiet resignation in the verses — even as held keys sound like evangelical choirs harmonising, even as soft drums and echoing piano keep the song gently moving forward, there’s something despondent there… but also, something strangely trusting. Like, no matter how resigned you feel, it’ll work out.
It’s that self-same dichotomy that threads its way through the album. As a whole, ‘The Second I’m Asleep’ feels less about big statements and more about fragments of emotion — longing, doubt, hope, regret — presented in different shades across its runtime. It may not flow as seamlessly as some of the band’s earlier work, but its individual moments are often strikingly beautiful, and when it lands, it lands with the same sincerity that has kept The Boxer Rebellion quietly enduring for more than twenty years.
It’s a fittingly solemn and shining return.
Words by James O’Sullivan
