Positive review of Mark Seymour’s new album, The Boxer.

Author:  Jeff Jenkins, Stack.

Date: 16 April 2024.

Original URL: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/blogs/music/mark-seymour-undertow-album-review-the-boxer

Article Text

Mark Seymour & the Undertow review: ‘The Boxer’ is a fight for love – and the finest music of Seymour’s career
Jeff Jenkins

He’s spent almost 45 years in the biz, but Mark Seymour’s latest shows us the musician remains closely connected to the musical coal seam in his mind.

Mark Seymour’s fifth album with his band The Undertow arrives this week

The former Hunters & Collectors frontman and songwriter has created an Aussie classic with The Boxer, which revolves around love and acceptance

As Rocky said, ”It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

Eleven albums into his solo career (following nine with Hunters & Collectors), Mark Seymour is somehow still standing – and making the finest music of his career. ”The fire is still in my blood,” he declares in Brother. And he’s not wrong. Remarkably, Seymour has become a better singer and better songwriter, and he’s still striving to make great art.

Seymour’s previous outfit was a mighty beast, a testosterone-filled, blokey band that rarely did subtlety. With The Undertow, Seymour has discovered his sensitive side. The second song here, All My Rage, reveals how far he has come. ”I have raged against the sky,” the song starts, before Seymour states simply: ”I will love and not give up.”

The Boxer is all about acceptance, not anger. Ultimately, the record is a fight for love. ”If not for money then do it for love,” Seymour sings in the title track. The final song, a cover of John Prine’s She Is My Everything, says it all in just one line: ”If I get lost, you can always find her standing right beside me in the rain.”

The Boxer is the perfect companion to Seymour’s similarly impressive Slow Dawn from four years ago. Both are Aussie classics.

The Boxer by Mark Seymour & the Undertow drops via Bloodlines.

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