The Boxer Rebellion’s return makes giant leaps, following SOLD OUT UK & European live dates with first new single in five years
Open arms greet The Boxer Rebellion as they release their first new music in five years, revealing new single Powdered Sugar at the same time as completing their first run of SOLD-OUT live dates following an extended hiatus. The track is the first to be drawn from a new, four-track EP produced by the band and mixed by Sam Duckworth set for release in early 2024, with the band also announcing the relaunch of their back catalogue in updated, re-mastered form. It will be the first time that the band’s albums Exits, Union, The Cold Still, and Promises will be available to fans on vinyl.
Quietly stating their intentions to return to their fervent community of fans in the spring, the four-piece officially returned to the stage for the first time since 2018 earlier this month at a full-to-capacity Brudenell Club, Leeds and will complete all eight UK & Europe dates this week. Following a run of memorable nights, including a celebratory, yet intimate ‘homecoming’ at Lafayette, London, the band concludes the tour with sold-out dates in Brussels (Ancienne Belgique – Sat 14 Oct) and Amsterdam (Paradiso – Sun 15 Oct).
The band – made up once again of Nathan Nicholson (vocals), Andrew Smith (guitars), Adam Harrison (bass) and Piers Hewitt (drums) – return to the studio audibly re-energised, refreshed and in peak condition on Powdered Sugar. Waterfall guitars, richly-textured instrumentation and Nicholson’s signature, soaring vocal delivery all combine to place another life-affirming track on top of the teetering pile of contemplative anthems The Boxer Rebellion has assembled over their twenty years as a band.
On the track, Nicholson explains: “This is a song about love and having the perfect partner, when your relationship is in its infancy and there’s a constant adrenaline with butterflies in the stomach – the anticipation of what could be. I just wanted to try and capture some of that feeling of optimism in the lyrics.”
Carving a singular path through indie music in the noughties and 2010’s, notably gaining worldwide notoriety as an anomalous DIY success story, The Boxer Rebellion toured internationally around their six albums from 2005, with five of those records independently financed and released. Arcing from thrilling Kerrang!-approved post-grunge band to matured, cinematic, post-rockers, The Boxer Rebellion gifted the listening world, and numerous TV and film soundtracks, plenty of evocative, mood-capturing singles including Flashing Red Light Means Go, Watermelon, Evacuate, Keep Moving, Diamonds and Both Sides Are Even.
Lighting a flame that attracted the span of the music press from the beginning, the band’s debut album, Exits, released in May 2005 and followed two weeks later by the financial failure of their label (Alan McGee’s Poptones), cast the die for The Boxer Rebellion’s decade that followed. Intently self-propelled and free of contractual shackles, the band forged ahead to self-release Union (2009), The Cold Still (2011), Promises (2013), Ocean By Ocean (2016) and Ghost Alive (2018), maintaining and growing a global community of fans and keeping admiring critics onside. Each of The Boxer Rebellion’s era-defining albums are lined-up for re-release as audiophile reissues in the coming months.
Drummer Piers Hewitt shares: “There had been a long time since we had even been together much at all, let alone made music and played in the same room. A lot has happened since for all of us, but there is an unshakeable feeling of togetherness in this band when we create something new. Recording ‘Powdered Sugar’, and other tracks this year has been almost cathartic in one sense, but also it just felt amazing to be back in a place where we can do what we love doing all together again. And with the journey we have shared up until now it also felt like the most natural thing in the world and almost as if no time had passed at all. To create new art is a joy. To do it with brothers that you love is a privilege.”
