Artist: Foxy Shazam
Album: Gonzo
Genre: Rock

Surprise releases are all the rage these days. Beyonce wasn’t the first to drop an album without warning, but the release of Beyonce in December certainly made her the highest profile artist to do so. Surprise albums work because the spectacle of the release is in the album itself, not the marketing campaign leading up to it. Few bands know more about spectacle than Foxy Shazam, so it’s fitting that they followed in Beyonce’s footsteps for their fifth album, Gonzo, released without warning on Bandcamp last week. The Ohio group is known for their grandiose rock and roll style, complete with horn sections and screaming guitars, as well as their wild live performances, but Gonzo finds them taking a more reserved approach, and the result is the most subdued and subtle album in Foxy Shazam’s discography.

One of the defining features of the group’s 2012 effort, The Church of Rock and Roll, was a production style that could only be described as enormous. The arena-ready layers of horns and harmonies perfectly complemented the grand themes of the frontman Eric Nally’s lyrics. On Gonzo, however, all of these elements are scaled back. A single saxophone line replaces full horn sections, and Nally is rarely joined by groups of backing vocalists. The guitar riffs, like those in the title track and the Vampire Weekend-esque “Don’t Give In,” tend to be muted instead of flashy, leaving more room in the mix for piano, organ, and twisting bass lines.

Save for occasional moments where the vocals sound buried in the mix, there is nothing inherently wrong with the toned-down style of Gonzo. It makes for a pleasant listen, but I doubt “pleasant” is a quality most Foxy Shazam fans look for in a new record. Furthermore, while Foxy Shazam were great at sounding larger than life, they are merely good as a straightforward rock band.

To stop there, however, would sell this record short. The stylistic shift is not a regression so much as it is a conscious effort at setting the stage for the deeply personal story of self-discovery that runs throughout Gonzo. The loose concept revolves around a protagonist who is branching out from home (“Cut your umbilical cord and stand on your feet”), childhood (“I’m busting out of youth”), and the daily grind (“I’m not afraid to die because I’m already dead. I want to have the fun”) even if it seems a little crazy. It’s not a groundbreaking narrative, but it does provide the album with a sense of unity.

Gonzo might seem jarring for longtime Foxy Shazam fans, but despite its distance from the band’s past work, it is still an album with a clear and (mostly) well-executed vision. If anything, Gonzo proves that Foxy Shazam are still capable of doing what they want in whatever way they want to do it, so they certainly have a long, exciting future ahead of them.

SCORE: 7/10
Review written by Troy Sennett (follow him on Twitter)

• Author
• Recent Posts

Troy Sennett

Latest posts by Troy Sennett (see all)

• Driver Friendly Debut New Song, “Everything Gold” - June 17, 2014
• The Gaslight Anthem Announce ‘Get Hurt’ - June 16, 2014
• WEEKLY WAX: Vinyl Releases For The Week Of 6/8-6/14 - June 14, 2014