On "Nearer My God", Foxing Craft an Instant Classic

I’ve been struggling to write about this album since I first heard it a few months ago, and it’s mostly because I’m overwhelmed by every listen of Nearer My God. It’s an album title that smacks with the air of supreme confidence and ambition, one that too many bands fail to live up to. Foxing are not one of them, I am happy to say. It’s one of those super-rare occasions where a band somehow hits their stride as artists and hits a creative peak.

For their third record, Foxing paired with former Death Cab for Cutie member/producer Chris Walla. It’s abundantly clear that his steady hand has guided the group in a way they haven’t even bothered to attempt on record before.  Songs like the opener “Grand Paradise” with its blippy churn and the horn swells of the single “Slapstick” really are just setting up for sonics that are weirder and more ambitious. “Lich Prince” sort of feels like a woozy 2011 Drake ballad before it opens up to a gasping, monolithic rock song. Have the lyrics “I feel like a houseplant” ever been used before? Have they ever given way to a cataclysmic world-burning guitar solo? Has that ever seagued into falsetto harmonizations all in the course of a minute? Of course not. That’s what makes it so awesome.

The album’s title track “Nearer My God” has already made waves as the band released it in five different languages total – Spanish, French, German and Japanese. It’s a soaring, chugging power ballad, perhaps the most traditional thing on the record. Once you hear it, you can almost understand the universality of that melody and how it would translate into other languages. “Heartbeats” doesn’t sound like a rock band at all – soundscapes tempered with program drum hits and orchestral samples that sound super familiar but transformed into something that feels entirely fresh. Also, go listen to all nine minutes of “Nine Cups” and try to figure out what it is. I have a feeling it’s going to take a lot longer than I’ve already spent with it.

Nearer My God packs so much detail per song it’s impossible to quantify the breadth of what an accomplishment it is. Make no mistake Foxing have made an instant classic. It’s a template for going forward and a record we’ll look to as ‘emo’ (or whatever this is) makes the great leap forward. Very rare does an album come along that perfectly captures what it’s like to push the boundaries of an established sound and do it so brazenly and make it sound so organic. What a gift that is.