Foxy Shazam - Foxy Shazam
- Written by Alex Kavanagh
In the interests of personal safety, I’ll try to be as constructive as possible during the course of this review. As I understand it, Foxy Shazam have a fairly well established fan base already, despite this being their debut album. It’s a bit like a heroin addict – I could be working with one and not even know, so it’s probably best I try to be nice.
My first impressions were to reach immediately for the volume and turn it down a little, down a bit more, keep going, keep... yes... ahhhh, that’s it. I did force myself to listen on however, and found, through gritted teeth, some positives. The tracks are well arranged. The song writing and musicianship is very good. They have a sense of theatre. Foxy Shazam are a band with a very clearly defined sound and style.
My main problem is that the brake cables on this Pontiac Firebird have been cut. The volume is stuck on 11. Every song is LARGER THAN LIFE. If you like clichéd 80s American rock troupes, and guitarists with big hair and spandex leggings standing back to back, pulling their best orgasm-faces while strumming away at their shiny axes, you will find much to love. Sadly, I don’t count myself amongst that number, so found the whole affair quite grating.
A large part of the press release is dedicated to extolling their live credentials, telling us how rambunctious and exuberantly maximalist they are. This isn’t hard to imagine. Theirs is a sound that belongs on a large stage, in front of a mainly intoxicated festival crowd, and I’m sure even I could enjoy them in such a context.
The intro to the album is a nice touch – melodic barks rising to a rhythmic crescendo, at which point the direction of the next 45 minutes is laid bare – The Darkness meets Elton John meets the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Screaming vocals, beefy drums and so many layers of sound piled on top of each other it’s hard to find the songs beneath them.
The Darkness connection is made manifest when Justin Hawkins pops up with a guitar solo on the Rob Cavallo-produced ‘Count Me Out’. Several other tracks pass without merit until ‘Second Floor’, a vaguely enjoyable slice of brash popcorn, complete with string section and effective use of the piano, which does appear throughout the album to occasionally balance the testosterone with a little delicacy.
The standout track doesn’t come until late in the album – track 8 – ‘Connect’, with the catchiest gospel-lite hook you’re likely to hear this millennium, and a beat that sounds like absolutely nothing else on the album. It’s a moment of real honest-to-goodness, sing-a-long brilliance that’s only let down by the lead singers irritating voice all over it, a complaint that was hard to escape throughout.
While the album definitely has growing potential due to the richness of its songs, and will please receptive ears, I found it irritating, overblown and unremarkable. See, nothing if not constructive.