Foxygen's ...And Star Power is a gigantic mess of an album. Weighing in at 22 songs and almost 1.5 hours of speaker time, Foxygen seems to be determined to break every rule of an album these days. Hardly anything seems well crafted. There's an ELO-esque 4 track suite in the middle of the damn thing. There's a song title "Matress Warehouse" followed by one named "666" for God's sake. Songs wonder off into the woods, get lost, set up camp, never get heard from again only to show at your sisters wedding with a beard and bird that they talk to in Portuguese. The retro sound is pure plagiarism at times. And, possibly worst of all, you get the feeling that Foxygen feels like they invented the 60s not just that they're referencing it. It's pretentious, annoying, and frankly I can't stop listening to it.
If there were ever a more startling, well, shit guys I didn't know you had THAT in you, enjoy today's Track of the Day a 6+ min sonic shitstorm that I'm still not sure how Foxygen makes work except by getting the ghost of Lou Reed and having it try out for the band.
I'm still reeling from the enormity of the album. Let's marvel at the fact that we can all enjoy this one crazy band that is capable of some really catchy tunes and ridiculously unwound jams; sometimes never at the same time. It's like the gritty rock and roll counterpoint to The Olivia Tremor Control's album, Dusk At Cubist Castle.
ReplyDeleteThis album is easy to criticize, but is one of the few albums of 2014 that has completely grabbed my attention. I was never a huge fan of Foxygen, but they earned a tremendous amount of respect for these kids with this release. The situation mimics MGMT's jump from Oracular Spectacular to Congratulations for me. A great pivot.
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