News / / 06.02.13

FOXYGEN

WE ARE THE 21st CENTURY AMBASSADORS OF PEACE & MAGIC 

Jagjaguwar

14/20

 

There appears to be something of a theme to the new Foxygen album, and that theme is The Rolling Stones. The record is so full of Jaggerisms that sometimes it’s difficult not to wonder whether the songs aren’t long forgotten Stones relics. In the few parts of the album that don’t recall records like Exile on Main St., it’s that band’s peers who crop up instead: The Beatles, The Kinks, Bowie, Love. Fortunately there’s not a thing wrong with that, as is made evident by the band’s laid back, tongue-in-cheek sentiment. Best of all, the songs are jammed full of hooks, from the uplifting chorus of On Blue Mountain, to San Francisco’s call-and-response refrain, “that’s O.K./I was bored anyway”. There’s pop pleasantry all over, but the rhythm shifting and experimentalism makes the album truly memorable: the freak out, as singer Sam France yelps over the end of Oh Yeah, is a real highlight. Though the charm does wear off a bit at some point towards the end, on the whole this is an impressive album.

 

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Words: James Balmont

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