is this all there is
on the new foxing album
I know, it’s Monday and the week in joy is usually here, but I spent the last week with COVID knocking me on my ass, I haven’t left the house in a week, and I’m having a little brain fog. But I did consume music while I was home, of course, and I want to tell you about my album of the year, and that is all I am going to talk about today because I am absolutely drained of energy.
LISTENING
Foxing - Foxing
Foxing is currently my favorite band. They’ve been hovering up there for a long time, but recently it became apparent to me that I love them more than any other band or artist. The way they constantly reinvent themselves, the way make the records they want to make without boundaries, without thoughts of singles and airplay, makes me admire them as well as love them. Every record they’ve made sounds completely different from the one before it (this is their fifth) and they have gotten better in turn.
This self titled album was released Friday at midnight. I made sure I was up to listen to it right away. There was a lot of anticipation because the songs they put out before the release were incredible. So I put on my airpods, smoked a bowl, and started up the album.
I’m not going to review the entire album here; that’s not what I do. Instead I will tell you that this record is the most harrowing, angry, depressing, hopeful, sweeping, epic album I’ve heard in a long time. I don’t quite remember being this gripped by a record so immediately and so profoundly. The lyrics are dark but thoughtful, the music pounding, cathartic, yet also soothing. Eric Hudson provides us with some of the best screams (is this all there is? fuck fuck fuck) while Conor Murphy digs deep into his emotions while giving us the best singing of his career.
The screaming of “constant fatigue constant fatigue constant fatigue” plays in my head over and over, and I scream along with it when it’s playing because not only am I COVID fatigued, but this world fatigues me. Life fatigues me. “Hell 99” is not the best song on the album (that belongs to “Gratitude”) but it is the rawest song here, and I live for music feeling raw and vulnerable. Here, Foxing is at their most vulnerable, but also at their most powerful.
Overall, Foxing is, in baseball terms, a perfect game. It’s flawless. It’s show stopping. It’s a team effort and every member of Foxing shines. The fact that it makes me feel, it makes me think, it makes me want to scream both out of catharsis and despair makes it, to this date, my album of the year, one that will take me through fall and into winter and wrap me in its cocoon while I seek shelter from the world.
I hope the world takes notice of this band now. I want them to have wild success. I want them to be a household name. But that’s not going to happen because Foxing does not make albums with the intention of finding fame. They make records that speak to their lives, and the lives of others. They make music that is not really commercially viable, and that’s kind of what I love most about them. They keep doing what they want to do, how they want to do it (this record was completely self made by the band and released on their own label), on their own terms. That I’ve loved everything they put out is incidental. What I love most is listening to band that is clearly on top of their game.
Foxing is a whole album. You listen to it all at once, in order to get the gist of it. It’s like watching a play of someone’s slow descent into despair and while they might not sound entertaining, Foxing manages to take that scenario and make you want even more of it. If you are going to listen, put on headphones and be prepared for 56 minute of pure power.
I have streamed this record 15 times since Friday midnight, and listened to it three times on vinyl. I am not letting up, either. Album of the year, no matter what is coming in the next few months. God bless Foxing.