My 2021 Album of the Year

Two weeks ago I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve, anticipating the greatest gift. I, cocooned in my bed, stayed awake so that I could listen to Draw Down The Moon (DDTM) in full as soon as the album became available. Pitchfork rated it a “meh” 6.0. Well, at least that’s a little more forgiving than Anthony Fantano’s scathing review of the band’s sophomore album, Dealer.

To say I was excited for DDTM would be an understatement. I was already on a high after Bleachers released Take The Sadness Out of Saturday Night, but this was different. I will preface this review by saying that I adore everything Foxing releases – yes, even Dealer. I cannot recall how I stumbled upon Foxing’s work in the first place, unfortunately. Though I do remember it being sometime between Dealer and Nearer My God (NMG), so probably around 2017, or my second year of college. Conor Murphy’s voice may polarize some listeners, yet it grasped me just as much as the band’s painfully relatable emo lyrics and math rock undertones.

As a college student, I was lucky enough to see the band three times during my time in Chicago: the first time at a Lincoln Hall show, the second at a sold-out Thalia Hall show, and, finally, at a weird daylight block festival at Wrigley Field the night before I would leave my favorite city and move to Saint Louis, Foxing’s hometown, for graduate school.

Foxing rolled out half of DDTM by the time the album was finally released on August 6th. While I cannot say I like it when bands gradually release half of the record in the months leading up to the big day, I also understand the reasons. Streaming services have mostly for the worse changed how we listen to music. I can see why bands may feel there is no alternative strategy. Conor has discussed at length how boring he finds today’s music releases; in response, the band rolled out the album in a series of online “rituals” that further echoed the album’s Dungeons and Dragons influences and, of course, all the hard work invested in the album itself and music videos.

The band is not too shy to reveal insecurities. Others told them years prior they would be an “arena band,” yet Foxing remains middle class at best, its members barely staying afloat in a city with a low cost of living. Previous members Josh Coll and Ricky Sampson left the band for what sounds like primarily financial reasons. The band and their fans expect some sort of breakthrough and were even surprised that NMG, despite its universal acclaim from music critics, did not skyrocket the group’s success. One potential reason for this is Foxing’s desire to wear many hats; each of their albums seems to only polarize their hard-earned fanbase more. Foxing experiments with a variety of sounds, often going against the grain of what hardcore emo and indie rock fans, among the other niches to whom Foxing caters, each unanimously want. DDTM is no exception.

I cherished DDTM’s singles before the album’s release, especially “If I Believed in Love,” which I streamed endlessly during my Chicago trip and remains one of my favorite tracks.

The singles, as good as they were alone, make much more sense within the album as a whole. The dualism of the album’s opener, “737,” lets us know we are in for a wild ride: mellow tunes many Foxing fans already know and love against a heavy cataclysm that literally introduces the rest of the album in its final verse. I cannot think of a better way to open the album.

“Go Down Together” remains the fun and wholesome track it was after its pre-release. The tune feels light and airy, echoing “Heartbeats” from NMG, though more sing-alongable. It is hard to not like this track. It seems almost the exact opposite of “737” – no surprises and not as dark. But it still works, especially lyrically, as Conor opened up on what he aimed to address on this album: cosmic insignificance. To some it may sound like just another indie rock song, but it was genuinely one of the most fun songs I experienced live (more on that in an upcoming post).

The third track, “Beacons,” blew me away upon first listen. New music usually needs to grow on me before I treasure it, but this was something else. I never imagined Foxing would experiment with this sound. I have listened to this song on repeat for an embarrassing number of hours at a time ever since I heard it at midnight on August 6th. The song is about sexuality. Thematically, this is a great juxtaposition to many of the songs on Dealer, which address Catholic guilt. Some suspected Conor’s bisexuality given the band’s music video for “Night Channels,” but he never publicly stated so until 2018. Eric, Foxing’s guitarist, explained that Conor seemed like a much more confident person after coming out, and this song affirms that notion. I could ramble about how amazing this song is but would not do it justice. Anyone who has ever been burdened with some type of shame will like this one.

“Draw Down the Moon” and “Where The Lightning Strikes Twice” were also pre-released singles, and I prefer the former. The title track sounds like a blend NMG and the rest of the songs on DDTM yet still classically Foxing. I cannot exactly pinpoint why, but “Where The Lightning Strikes Twice” does not do much for me. Neither its sound nor its lyrics are bad, but I have not been able to connect with it.

“Bialystok” is a sweet track about homesickness, named after a Polish city and the farthest away the band has ever played from their hometown. The song wrestles with glimmering soft sounds and an indie feel that fits right in with other songs on the album. I love that they named the track after a place, yet the lyrics “arguing in the kitchen just to be the one that you argue with” epitomize the entire album thematically: our relationships with those around us harbor great meaning, despite increasing nihilism in our dumpster fire world.

“At Least We Found The Floor” sounds like it will be another cliché indie folk wannabe acoustic track. Even if it were, I would still love it. But it’s more than that. Its lyrics have positive undertones about hitting rock bottom, calling out a past incident where Foxing’s $30,000 worth of band equipment was stolen. But much like “737” deceives the listener, this song, too, surprises when the outro hits you with “it’s gonna get much worse than this.”

Surprisingly, what stood out the least to me after my first few listens of the album, “Cold Blooded,” grows on me more each day. It’s epic live, and how can anyone dislike the line about Mahlon Layne?

“If I Believed in Love” is my other favorite track from the album, and I honestly knew it even before the album was released in full. I resonated with its lyrics on the first listen. The song builds up very much like “Grand Paradise” on NMG; the way Conor sings “I’d unattend my mind” on the former sends me chills like the latter’s iconic “shock-collared at the gates of heaven” line. Another song I cannot do justice by writing about it – go listen to it.

“Speak With The Dead” weirded me out a bit when the band chose to pre-release it, the closing track, as the first single. Again, the build-up to something awesome, namely Eric’s guitar solo, and Conor’s final, somber “there you are” close out the song, and now also the album, amazingly.

Foxing is one of the most hard-working bands, if not the most, and this album and its production show that. Even if DDTM is not what Pitchfork or diehard fans of The Albatross wanted, Foxing hammers home their versatility yet again not only with respect to a single album but also their entire discography. Foxing is ambitious but never strays too far from home, as their trademark emo lyrics remain the forefront. This album already means everything to me. Pitchfork is silly.