Review: The Boxer Rebellion @ The Ruby Lounge

Date: 6th March 2011

Reviewed by: Miz DeShannon

This is quite a monumental time for The Boxer Rebellion, who are back on the road with new LP The Cold Still, after suffering a pretty harsh blow with the release of their last album (Union 2009).

It wasn't recognised by official charts due to not being on 'physical release', despite being available to be sold at gigs. Harsh or what. Red tape and legalities and the 'independent sales' debate prevails again...

But it seems on this tour the band are keen to concentrate on the future and push the new release, playing all but four songs from The Cold Still.

Opening with 'The Runner', they clearly weren’t going to throw all their eggs in one basket by playing their best song first. Not that this isn't a good song, but it's quite laid back and simple compared to some of the rest of the set, with a straightforward melody and easy-going vocals. Building up the set with songs that had echoes of Editors, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at times and a lot of My Bloody Valentine thrown in, their bass heavy sound with the addition of keys and acoustic guitar in places covered subjects from politics to death.

'Doubt' towards the end of the set was cited as "a nice song" all the same, which it was. There were slight harks to U2 in some riffs and melodies (in a good way) and it seems the band are producing much better stuff than the average indie rock dirge which can come out of such influences.

They played all three of their songs from the 2010 film 'Going The Distance' from the aforementioned album Union – 'If You Run' having a very similar sound to Temper Trap's 'Sweet Disposition' in the lightly picked guitar and with Nathan's vocal reminiscent of that of Midlake or Band Of Horses.

I overheard someone in the crowd reference The Black Angels as a similarity, but The Boxer Rebellion aren't doing that psychedelic retro rock at all. With quite emotional songs and melodies, they have a good solid sound, some solid drumming on songs like 'Flashing' from their first ever EP release, and lots of soaring guitars from Todd with, as expected, massive use of delay and reverb.

Returning to the stage for a three song encore, which included 'Cause For Alarm', there was suddenly lots of jumping about in what is probably their most BRMC-style song. They ended with 'Goro' to rapturous applause, but with all these references and similarities, I'm still not sure if anything stood out well enough as their own unique style, or whether everything sounded pretty similar.

Regardless, the crowd loved it, and a packed out Ruby Lounge proved that attention on these guys is growing at last.

Read our recent interview with The Boxer Rebellion

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