For 56 minutes Foxing alternately thrills and confounds but provides little in the way of catharsis. No longer daydreaming of planetary apocalypse, Foxing fears not death but dying, the Doomsday Clock that starts up with every morning alarm. The mantras provide grounding and no relief—“You’re on your own”; “Repeat and then repeat, you can never really leave”; “What if it doesn’t matter anymore?” On “Kentucky McDonald’s” the vocal, lead, and rhythm guitar melodies appear to be going in opposite directions, as if drawn and quartered by Nearer My God’s four horsemen. The arrangement turns molten as Murphy sounds like he’s choking on his own blood, but there’s no release, only more tension. Questioning your entire life on a Ronald McDonald bench is not something that should be resolved in four minutes. Murphy likens the Foxing experience to a slow drowning on “Greyhound,” which thrashes to the surface only for him to yell, “It means nothing to me!”
If only. In an interview, Foxing revealed how much they despised each other during the album’s recording, how Hudson spent five days “hate-mixing” a song that he couldn’t wrap his head around and experienced “the darkest fucking thoughts of my life” revisiting The Albatross for adoring crowds in 2023. They don’t give a firm answer as to whether it was all worth it. Foxing concludes with a recording of Hudson at 13, saying to Murphy, “I don’t think the song is as good as it could be, but it’s coming along.” If they could have seen 20 years ahead, would they keep at it? As Murphy sighs during the preceding piano ballad “Cry Baby,” “If I could I’d start over again/It’s been fun but I’d change everything.”
Foxing isn’t a sob story from a band that is, objectively, more successful than most of its peers. Save for a few snapshots from the road, Murphy’s words could be those of a middle school teacher buying their own supplies for the next term, a harried public defender $250,000 in debt, or basically anyone exploited by their idealism long enough to realize salvation isn’t coming. If there were a viral hit or festival booking that could make Foxing feel secure, it probably won’t come from this album. Instead, the meaning comes from the dozens of little moments when they’ve pushed themselves further than they imagined, without promise of any future reward. The days of yelling “I want it all” to an imagined arena audience are gone. Foxing are learning to want what they have.
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