Music / Reviews
Review: Black Foxxes / Big Spring / Phoxjaw
Exchange, October 30
Alternative rock is the hardest genre to pull off convincingly, as bands have to straddle the line between catchiness and craziness, finding ways to stand out while remaining accessible. For every Royal Blood, Arcane Roots or Biffy Clyro there are hundreds of bands who can’t quite combine the stellar songwriting chops and originality needed to stand out.
This evening’s local opener, Phoxjaw, have an absolutely stunning live sound, and though they only played their first live show in August it’s clear that they’ve spent many hours fine-tuning their set. Songs like Triceratops land with all the weight of their namesake and set heads nodding around the room – imagine Dillinger Escape Plan with a dash of Royal Blood. Where Phoxjaw don’t quite shine, though, is in the chorus department; their songs seem to lack the vocal identity to tie everything together.
is needed now More than ever
Main support tonight is Big Spring, who offer a weirder, more Queens of the Stone Age / Soundgarden vibe than the first act. They manage to match Phoxjaw’s big, brilliant sound, but where Big Spring stand out is with their songwriting; there is a strong core to each song, centred around some great vocal parts. In fact, their songs are put under the microscope when the bass amp conks out for a song and a half, leaving their music to hang purely by the quality of the writing (which it does).
Tonight’s headline act, Black Foxxes, recently released their debut album, and as they perform to a nearly-full Exchange it’s clear that although they’re a relatively new band, they’ve got a strong following. Their performance is tight, well executed and generally strong, but it’s hard not to feel like there’s a little magic lacking – it seems as if the songs have been written to showcase the vocals, but they just aren’t strong enough to carry the band. If they had Chris Cornell or Corey Taylor onstage then perhaps they could sound excellent, but the Black Foxxes frontman sounds more like James Bay’s angry older brother.
He’s also annoyed by some whistling feedback onstage, and lets it show; he’s obviously irate with the sound engineer by the end of the night, and in fact the band’s Twitter account makes a point of calling the engineer out online after the show. Although it’s an understandably frustrating situation for the singer, his exasperation only draws attention to it and away from their performance.
Ultimately, the three acts tonight show that at the core of every great performance is a set of great songs. The best bands are the ones with the best songs, and tonight it doesn’t feel like the headliners are that band.
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