“Is this Foxing, though?”
This was the primary question permeating my mind over the course of this evening at Tufnell Park’s Dome. Having witnessed this once-strictly emo/math-rock band many moons ago in San Francisco, their recent left turn encasing their latest 3rd LP, Nearer My God, incessantly caught me off guard this time around in London. For their first ever sold-out UK show, their latest sound evidently garnered a wider audience whilst also retaining their ones of the past - this gig allowed me a brief visual as to why.
Swapping out lightly-tinged guitar riffs and falsetto vocals for electronically-coated beats and synth refrains, Foxing immediately showcased this aforementioned ‘left turn’ in their repertoire with ‘Grand Paradise’. As a slow-burner to the set’s inception, its transcendence into a distorted wall-of-sound chaos proved impressively indelible - thereafter reverting to their nostalgic sounds with ‘The Medic’ featuring frontman Conor Murphy’s renowned falsetto vocals.
Sprinkled amongst their setlist for this evening, came more of these nostalgic impulses of their earlier sounds - from the euphoric chorus of vocals in ‘The Magdalene’, to the piano ballad of ‘Night Channels’. Although my issues with the venue’s sound system remained in tact, primarily between the mixing of higher frequencies against bassier tones, the safer tropes of Foxing’s older discography still proved favourable with the crowd. Whilst their older songwriting tropes now proved less experimentally impressive compared to their current LP, the nostalgia underlying these tracks somewhat triumphed over the dying spirits of emo/math-rock undergone this decade.
In conjunction with their first sold-out show in this country, the band dedicated one of their latest tracks, ‘Lambert’, to those who attended their first UK show a few years ago. Comparing and contrasting these two sets of sounds from Foxing, it ultimately reaffirmed my preference for their older discography. From this particular track’s trite use of repetitive guitar riffs and synth chords against Conor’s dull falsetto melody, to ‘Slapstick’s heavy-handed homage to Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie’s hayday circa 2003, the majority of their recent work did little to entice me throughout.
Emulating the inception of this set, though, Foxing’s also encore reflected their past and present sounds side by side. With such a deluge of emotions ridden within ‘Rory’ from their debut LP of 2013, ‘The Albatross’, this track imminently brought me back to the beginning of my discovery of San Francisco’s music scene in early 2016 - burgeoned altogether with Conor’s emphatic trumpet solo embedded in its outro. Admittedly, the most popular track of evening came from their recent title track single, ‘Nearer My God’, with its bassy electronics bolstering the anthemic sheen of the repeated cries “Do you want me at all?” - rounding off this emotionally turmoiled evening well to Foxing's sold-out confidants.
On my second occasion of witnessing Foxing’s live show, I was initially perplexed at the differences in their older and recent discography - one tied to its math-rock roots and the other approaching a more straightforward indie-rock style laced with various electronic nic-nacs. Aside from the main singles served, it was the former style which persevered tonight against the latter tracks which blurred into one another with relative ease. Yet these singles commenced as well as concluded my permeating question - stating to the sold-out audience that this was indeed the closure of an ancient chapter and the beginning of a new experimental chapter for Foxing.
7/10
Foxing's latest LP, Nearer My God, is out now and can be found here.
All photos are courtesy of David Maynard, whose work can be found here.
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