Genre(s): Indie rock, emo, art rock
Label: Grand Paradise Records
Released: September 13, 2024
About Foxing
Foxing has built a career on a desire to evolve. When they hit the scene with their 2013 debut, The Albatross, their sound settled nicely within the “Midwestern emo” label, landing them on tours with bands like The Hotelier and Modern Baseball. But with their follow-up Dealer, the band dipped into a post-rock-influenced sound similar to The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die’s Harmlessness. They embraced a more complex, compositionally layered approach that teased their potential to push boundaries.
That artistic promise was realized with Nearer My God, a creative leap into expansive art rock that raised their profile, like an indie/emo Radiohead. Produced by Chris Walla (formerly of Death Cab for Cutie), the band flirted with more synth-heavy arrangements to create what many consider to be their opus. What followed in 2022’s Draw Down the Moon stood as a sharp pivot into a more poppy sound, with catchier hooks on songs like “Beacons” to full-on dance party vibes on “Bialystok”.
Clearly, Foxing is a band that is well-versed in exploring new sounds with each release. But their self-titled fifth album also marks a significant moment in their career: it’s their first fully self-produced record, released independently on their Grand Paradise label. In fully embracing this DIY ethos, they have crafted an album that continues their creative trajectory with a self-contained statement of artistic freedom.
Why You Should Care
With Foxing, the band cements their status as genre trailblazers. Their sound has progressed in a way that recalls past heavyweights like Brand New and mewithoutYou. You can practically hear Jesse Lacey in singer Conor Murphy’s “Make your mother proud!” in the latter half of the opening track, “Secret History”. If Nearer My God was their The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me and Draw Down the Moon was their It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All a Dream! It’s Alright-esque sonic pivot, then this is Foxing in their Daisy or [Untitled] era. It’s darker, more experimental, and committed to creating a complete listening experience.
Every band member comes together to synthesize their musical journey into a work that boldly stands out in their discography. Nearer My God’s art-rock expansiveness is blended with borderline anti-pop sensibilities, a sharp turn from the average song on Draw Down the Moon. Advance singles “Hell 99” and “Greyhound” meander around noisy breakdowns and glitchy passages with poignant lyrical standouts: “Throw out all the joy and show me metrics for my failures / I live in modern times give me a modern sense of worth” and “I’ve been feeling like my peak is in my past / And my leg is tangled, trapped in the coral now / Dropping everything I love to the bottom of the pond / Just to free my fingers up, pry the polyps off,” respectively.
But fans of Draw Down the Moon’s poppier hooks don’t have to fret, because “Barking” and “Gratitude” still bring a familiar catchiness that wouldn’t feel out of place on that record. Both show how easy it is for Murphy to craft an earworm backed by Jon Hellwig’s drum arrangements and exceptional guitar work from in-house producer Eric Hudson. Conversely, “Kentucky McDonalds” brings an unexpected mix of sonic influences, with almost a hint of Black Country, New Road early on before collapsing into a satisfying breakdown that feels like a breeze on a sweltering summer day.
Throughout the album, Hudson’s production takes care to make space for those satisfying heavy moments and slower tempos that let the listener breathe. Tracks like “Cleaning” and “Dead Cat” play that more subdued role, which is vital to the album’s overall atmosphere, even if they aren’t destined to be fan favorites. “Spit” and “Dead Internet” dip into borderline sludge metal at points, especially on the latter track, without feeling out of place in the track listing. It speaks honestly to the overall skill of the band to create a batch of songs with such variety that manage to feel cohesive across nearly an hour while still being definitively Foxing in sound.
The record’s musical journey comes to a satisfying end with “Hall of Frozen Heads”, which scratches an itch like Nearer, My God’s “Five Cups” or Draw Down the Moon’s “Speak to the Dead” but almost with M83 influence. “Cry Baby” ends the listen with a piano-led reflection that feels equally pointed at a loved one and the band’s fans (“If I could, I’d start over again / It’s been fun, but I’d change everything / But there’s you smiling when I come home / Yeah, there’s you on the other side of the phone”). Murphy, Hellwig, and Hudson must have plenty of “What ifs” from over thirteen years together, but Foxing feels like their defiant rejection of whatever could’ve been.
In Closing…
Foxing is an occasionally challenging yet intensely fulfilling listen, reaffirming the band’s dedication to music as an art form and technical craft. Lyrically, it delivers some of Murphy’s most introspective and hard-hitting lines to date alongside a talented, flexible display of musicianship.
Across five records and hundreds of shows, Foxing has built a reputation for artistic resilience. They are unafraid to continue evolving and redefining their own boundaries. Ultimately, their self-titled effort is a bold statement: refuse to rest on your laurels and choose to be unabashedly yourself instead.
Listen + Purchase Foxing
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