The Boxer Rebellion release OPEN ARMS EP & title track…
Reaching one hand into the future and pulling the past along with the other, transatlantic post-rock icons, The Boxer Rebellion’s fresh start at the seam of expansive, soul-searching songwriting comes to a richly-layered conclusion with the release of their four-track Open Arms EP – OUT NOW. With the addition of the emotive title track, the four-piece turn theirs and their listeners’ attention back to human fragility and the help anyone might need when contentment feels a world away.
Reflecting on personal trauma, The Boxer Rebellion’s last album, 2018’s Ghosts Alive courageously opened up dialogue on the tragedy of loss and led to their support for mental health charity, CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). Speaking to The Independent at the time, singer, Nathan Nicholson, explained their ties to the charity in light of his own experience, but also that many musicians the band knew suffered “depression or mental health issues.”
Unhurried and intimate, with Nicholson’s words tenderly placed over the restrained instrumentation from his band mates – Adam Harrison (bass guitar), Piers Hewitt (drums) and Andrew Smith (lead guitar) – Open Arms reflects the band’s collective humanity and essential, artistic compulsion to speak to the complexity of what often lies within.
Nicholson says: “‘Open Arms’ started life a few years ago when we as a band visited CALM, who, in their words are “taking a stand against suicide.” That means standing against feeling shit, standing up to stereotypes and standing together to show life is always worth living.
“It was eye opening and also something that I can very much relate to through the experiences in my own family. ‘Open Arms’ is about the power of being there for someone, listening without judgment and letting them know that they are loved.”
The band’s surprise return to live performance with a run of sold-out dates through the UK and Europe in 2023 is followed by a year in which The Boxer Rebellion and their fans can look forward as well as back. New music collides with the 15th anniversary of Union, their history-making second and first self-released album, reissued for the first time on vinyl last year. Union’s unorthodox, independent release within a music industry in tumultuous flux saw it become the first album to break into the Billboard Album Chart as a trailblazing, digital only release.
Resurrecting their Absentee Recordings label, not only for reissues, which also included cherished fan-favourites Exits, The Cold Still, and Promises, The Boxer Rebellion first returned to their DIY-powered community of listeners after a five-year pause with last October’s cascading, waterfall-riffed statement-of-intent single, Powdered Sugar.
Offering fans who couldn’t grab tickets for their live return, which took in unforgettable, capacity nights at ornate venues including Amsterdam’s famous Paradiso, access to new music that they’d recently performed on the road for the first time, the band followed up with two equally studied and impassioned singles, Lightness Out Of Darkness and A Man As Alive As The City.
The Open Arms EP now lines up alongside the band’s impressive run of classic singles including Flashing Red Light Means Go, Evacuate, Keep Moving, Diamonds and Both Sides Are Even, which established the band as an international cultural force through their inclusion across numerous popular TV and film soundtracks.
The Boxer Rebellion are on course to update their story throughout 2024, with promise of more new music and further live appearances.
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