Album Review: The Foxery - 'Unless'

15 September 2014 | 8:24 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Jam packed debut that could use some more sheen.

The Foxery have decided to begin their debut album ‘Unless’ by covering Coldplay in their opening track, (In)Ferno. The band’s melody on “I wish I could see you, I wish I could fear you” may as well be “Come up to meet you, tell you I’m sorry.” Luckily the record steers away from anymore more borrowings as it continues and turns into quite the journey.

This is a journey however that could have used some much better production, there is far too much separation between the vocals and the music, with the more intense parts of the song losing some of their impact by simply not sounding big enough. It’s a disappointing let down for what is otherwise quite a unique sounding band.

The group meld together elements of post-hardcore, indie rock and prog quite seamlessly to keep you guessing all the way through. The spare, atmospheric moments underneath spoken word in The Sorrow conjur up a mix of Isis and La Dispute before some hazy rock n’ roll in The Fifth which vocally uses the relaxed harmonies of Brand New. The influences are quite clearly there, and obvious, but there is so damn many of them it makes it kinda cool.

Things simmer down for the vocal heavy Crawl, which introduces a female melody line and makes for quite an interesting idea, and that’s the thing, this band have almost too many ideas happening in this record but that makes it very exciting, they seem like a group who have the potential for some serious creative longevity.

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The album standouts come in the form of The Gnashing I & II, strong melodies, driving drums and intertwining drum lines, if only it wasn’t for that damn production. The record closes with the near ten minute opus, Oh, The Places You’ll Go, in which the guitars take over the melody reins and really prove their worth.

 

 

 

The Foxery seem very exciting, the debut is jam packed, if they could just get some better production and recording qualities they would truly become a force to be reckoned with.

1. (In)Ferno

2. Broken Vessels

3. The Sorrow

4. Lamentations

5. The Fifth

6. Near

7. Crawl

8. The Fifth II

9. The Gnashing

10. The Gnashing II

11. Patmos

12. Oh, The Places You'll Go!