New York–based artist Lauren Minear returns with Boxing Day (Deluxe), an expanded and deeply personal continuation of her acclaimed 2025 album Boxing Day. Documenting two years of artistic and emotional self-discovery, the deluxe edition captures Minear coming to terms with how her past continues to shape her present. In many ways, it feels like a beginning. “It was so transformative,” Minear explains, “that in some ways, it feels like my first album.”
Written across New York and London throughout 2023, Boxing Day (Deluxe) began to fully take shape during a February 2024 creative retreat in Woodstock, NY. From there, the project was tracked between producer Dan Weeks’ London studio and Minear’s home studio in Westchester, NY. The result is a cinematic, introspective body of work rooted in confidence, clarity, and creative freedom.
“This album has taught me how to speak up for myself,” Minear says. “The main theme is anger, but the story I’m conveying is that self-expression facilitates emotional freedom. The opposite of depression is creativity.”
At the heart of the deluxe release is “Anxiety,” a sharp, clever, and deeply resonant lead single about recognizing that anxiety is sometimes instinct, not weakness. Minear wrote the song shortly after removing herself from a toxic professional relationship with a creative agency that had been stealing from her. “While I was in it, I felt crazy,” she reflects. “But once it ended, I realized that the anxiety I felt was just my instinct kicking in and trying to protect me.”
The hook for “Anxiety” was written in an unexpected place (the bathroom of her sister-in-law’s house in Leeds, England) before being brought into a London writing session with Weeks, where the track fully came to life. A subtle but intentional production choice defines the song: a piano line tucked between sections, reintroduced after initially being replaced by electric guitar. “I really missed it, so I asked Dan to bring it back into the final track,” Minear explains. “I think it sounds the way anxiety feels.”
Boxing Day (Deluxe) builds on the emotional foundation of the original record (dubbed “an 11-song masterpiece that pulls apart the webbing of motherhood, relationships, and womanhood while reflecting Minear’s growth in confidence and self-trust” by EARMILK). Her songwriting, long rooted in vulnerability and mental health, continues to function as an invitation: to sit with discomfort, to tell the truth, and to connect more deeply. “The more vulnerable I am,” she says, “the more connected I feel.”
Originally from Nashville and now based in New York, Minear is known for translating complex inner worlds into immersive sound. Her voice (often compared to Natalie Merchant, Dido, and Maggie Rogers) carries raw emotional weight, while her lyricism draws parallels to Joni Mitchell and Sarah McLachlan. Her work has earned praise for its honesty, depth, and relatability, with multi-platinum songwriter Andrea Stolpe noting, “[Lauren has] the ability to make the most difficult experiences relatable.”
With Boxing Day (Deluxe), Lauren Minear doesn’t just revisit a chapter. She reframes it, stepping forward with clarity, conviction, and creative liberation.
FOLLOW LAUREN MINEAR ON SOCIALS:
INSTAGRAM •FACEBOOK •TIKTOK •X •SPOTIFY •APPLE MUSIC •SOUNDCLOUD •YOUTUBE
