Cult favorites Foxing have been chumming the waters for months, first sharing their WHY?-featuring epic “Speak With the Dead” in early March, then following that up with “Go Down Together” in mid-April. Today (May 27) brings not only a third new track, “Where the Lightning Strikes Twice,” but also the details of the St. Louis-based trio’s first new album in three years, Draw Down The Moon, out Aug. 6 via Hopeless Records and the band’s own Grand Paradise label.
The band’s 2021 tracks have been predictably unpredictable—though frequently associated with emo, Foxing have historically been a difficult band to pin down stylistically. If there’s one quality of theirs that’s remained consistent, it’s ambition, and on Draw Down The Moon, that’s truer than ever: The album is “about the idea of your cosmic significance,” says frontman Conor Murphy in a statement. “The way you feel like a tiny speck in the grand scheme of the universe, that’s a feeling everybody has. You can get lost thinking about how small you are. Draw Down The Moon explores how our connections to people and places and ideas are what binds us to the universe and reality.”
That manifests as a series of worldly themes, each explored in one of 10 tracks: “age, financial ruin, sexuality, commitment, success, homes, luck, vulnerability, trust and death.” Today’s preview, “Where the Lightning Strikes Twice,” is an anthemic stomper about success, built on a guitar riff/drum groove combo reminiscent of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Murphy’s full-throated vocals strain with yearning to soar as he repeats, “I wanna go where the lightning strikes twice,” and the track’s layered choruses make Manchester Orchestra’s involvement in Draw Down The Moon’s creation plain. Synth atmospherics and an extended, vocals-backed guitar solo round the track out.
Foxing guitarist Eric Hudson produced Draw Down The Moon, which the band worked on for over a year at their St. Louis studio before bringing it down to Georgia, where they teamed up with the aforementioned Orchestra. They pulled the title of their new record from Margot Adler’s ritual book Drawing Down The Moon, whose mysticism tied into the religion and RPG lore that have colored the band’s past output.
Watch the rotoscoped “Go Down Together” video (co-directed and partially animated by Murphy) below, plus Foxing’s 2018 Paste Studio session, and see the details of Draw Down The Moon further down. You can preorder it here.
Draw Down The Moon Tracklist:
01. 737
02. Go Down Together
03. Beacons
04. Draw Down The Moon
05. Where the Lightning Strikes Twice
06. Bialystok
07. At Least We Found the Floor
08. Cold Blooded
09. If I Believed in Love
10. Speak With The Dead ft. WHY?
Draw Down The Moon Album Art:
