...And Star Power
Like many home-recording artists before them who found that their half-baked ideas had a deceptive charm of their own, Foxygen—the duo of Sam France and Jonathan Rado—have recreated the craziness of their high school recording project but added superior fidelity and top-notch musicianship that can nail any genre at will. Reminiscent of R. Stevie Moore and/or Ween, Foxygen’s second album, *…And Star Power*, plays like an experimental mixtape with pop songs and ballads recalling the early \'70s, bizarre jams, punk noise, and flashing moments of pure brilliance for more than 80 minutes of serendipitous madness.
Foxygen have joined Star Power. It is a punk band, and you can be in it, too. Star Power is the radio station that you can hear only if you believe. We're all stars of the scene. FOXYGEN... AND STAR POWER is the new DOUBLE ALBUM from Foxygen, a CINEMATIC AUDITORY ADVENTURE for the speedy freaks, skull krunchers, abductees, and misfits... Made by Foxygen at Dream Star Studios in their Secret Haunted House with the UFOs flying around in the sky. A gaggle of guest stars. Roman-numeraled musical suites. Vocals recorded on a shoddy tape machine at The Beverly Hills Hotel and Chateau Marmont. A svelte 82-minute run time of psych-ward folk, cartoon fantasia, songs that morph into each other, weaving in and out of the head like UFO radio transmission skullkrush music. ADHD star power underground revolution. Soft-rock indulgences, D&D doomrock and paranoid bathroom rompers. Process is the point. A kaleidoscoping view. Blasphemy even the gods smile one. Rock and roll for the skull...* *From Patty Smith's 1973 CREEM review of Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star. The section concludes "Todd Rundgren is preparing us for a generation of frenzied children who will dream in animation."
Foxygen seemed to pack a career’s worth of triumphs and travesties into the last two years. *...*And Star Power translates all the exhilaration and exhaustion the band has experienced into an unwieldy 24-song splatter that often sounds like a band at war with itself.
When is musical excess—or more specifically a carefree recording style—a beautiful thing, and when is it purely over-indulgence? With today’s artists’ ability to record wherever and whenever they want and with more ways to create music than in the past, it can be easy to get carried away, adding every sound that’s…
In an interview just before the release of their official debut full-length, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, Foxygen's lead singer Sam France said, "On our next album we're gonna completely promote it like I've gone insane or I'm i
The quality on Foxygen’s new double album is too thin to warrant its running time, writes <strong>Phil Mongredien</strong>
...And Star Power emulates not only the musical styles, but also the loopy concepts of so many classic bands.
Northern Transmissions review of …And Star Power by Foxygen, their new album comes out on October 14 on Jagjaguwar, the first single is "How Can You Really"