4 out of 5

Label: Baby Tooth, Hocus Bogus

Produced by: Ben Schneider

A hodgepodge of female-fronted punk from across the decades, plus just some savvy whomever-fronted punk and pop and grunge nods, Foxx Bodies’ debut self-titled album absolutely delights by truly being more than the sum of its parts.

…Those parts can be a pool of whatever your common listenings were – I can hear shades of Riot Grrls like Bikini Kill in the band’s snarling energy, or Sleater-Kinney in singer Bella Vanek’s ability to jump between sing-song trills and shouts, and a certain performative aspect of a group like Yeah Yeah Yeahs – but feel free to cast around for notes of hardcore punk like Minor Threat, or classic 70s surf / garage vibes, or Pixies-esque indie rock…

While this all coheres into something that is ultimately of the band’s own DNA, and is done so with an almost impossible maturity / awareness – embracing the snottiness of the influences and paying it forward with eff-off lyricism and ‘tude, but layered in with an innate grasp of melody and hooks, and intelligence injected right beneath that snot – there’s a kind of slavish addiction to earning a “punk rock” label that maybe prevents the band from achieving something greater: Ben Schneider’s bruised recording is cool sounding, but did we need a layer of grit over everything? And similarly, Bella’s narratives on Annie, or Mercy Fuck, show her skill at balancing different moods / perspectives without sacrificing on the lyrics’ power, whereas elsewhere things lean into disaffection maybe a tad too much.

I mean, for a debut album, it’s impressive as hell, and only when something is this good out of the gate does it maybe make you go searching even harder for criticisms. Foxx Bodies – the band, the album – prove how fresh punk can be, even after decades of hitting on a similar three chords.