Black Foxxes’s third album is a different beast, but it’s still a beast nonetheless.
Physically, the trio are different for this album and the one constant, frontman Mark Holley, is more wild and raw; almost unrecognisable from the more careful and delicate lyricist introduced in the band’s debut ‘I’m Not Well’ back in 2016.
Instead there an attitude which flares up through the menacing whispers in ‘Drug Holiday’, the doomy riffing on ‘Badlands’ and anarchy which opens up on ‘Pacific’.
There remains a lingering doubt of “Am I still crazy now?” asked on ‘My Skin’ but, overall, Black Foxxes are more self-assured and in turn confidently pull their sound further and further apart with spiralling synths, distorted and disconcerting vocals and wailing horns sprinkled on top of their explosive indie rock dynamic.
The pitfalls of being unfiltered, however, is there is a lot of fat on the album; the average running time of each track is just over 5 minutes (with closer ‘The Diving Bell’ racking up over 9 and a half minutes), and it becomes easy for some tracks to melt away as their demand for attention wanes.
But, despite the changes, at their core, it’s the same brilliant and bold Black Foxxes and this, their self-titled third album, is a confident step forward into a bright future.
