Warning reader: this review is blunt. If I am to write a review, as is the case, I want anyone reading it to get a sense of where I’m coming from, rather than convince someone the “right” and “wrong” opinion on the content discussed, which in the long run only serves to feed the writer’s ego. No ego assertion here, just honesty in search of a little empathy. With this in mind, if I am left feeling bitter then there is no need to sugarcoat. So here goes.
I listened to Introducing, the newest from Foxy Shazam. It left me feeling very confused. Not the good kind of confused. The good kind of confused is when something prompts one to re-evaluate perspective. This was more the “what the hell are they going for?” type of confused. The piano throughout Introducing competes with vocalist Eric Nally for frontman - almost every track has a dark and overly-theatric element (“almost” used because maybe one or two tracks aren’t that dark…but they’re all pretty theatric). The keys take their cue from the rock n’ roll elements of acts such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Queen, but with Nally’s At the Drive-In/Blood Brothers impression, in the context of contemporary “punk” (my apologies to Ian MacKaye for the absence of a better label), the end product sounds more contrived than a Styx rock opera. Foxy Shazam has taken the piano element incorporated into the post-punk movement and pushed it to the extreme, and this is the only “innovation” evident here; a small twist on the formula of a tired scene where most acts need to describe their uniqueness with top-notch verbiage to have others comprehend how unique they are. Case and point: “Foxy Shazam construct a formula of chaotic and disjointed, convulsive punk rock, complete w/ apocalyptic lyrics and doom-ridden instrumentation, seemingly rising and intoxicating like vapors from a cryptic, acid-laden party in hell.” Seriously.
Maybe it has finally happened. Maybe I have reluctantly graduated into the caste of “the old generation” who sticks to the classics, and doesn’t have an ear for what’s new and hip and fresh and jive. But then again, I remember that same “not my generation” generation telling me about how all the groups popular in the days of my adolescence were regurgitating formats of the past, and I remember the day when I realized that for the most part, they were right. Now is not the time for a Philosophy of Music 101 course, but regardless of whether I think Foxy Shazam works or not, any band that proclaim themselves the “Evel Knievel of Rock N Roll” better have one hell of an album to back. Maybe these guys can rock a live crowd, but Introducing doesn’t come close to clearing the canyon.
-Bill Braun
