A band shouldn’t be releasing a double album of psychedelic rock in 2014 with a running time that hovers around 80 minutes. That formula has lost its practicality in the Information Age and its inherent short attention spans. But Foxygen did just that. What I love about Foxygen’s new album, … And Star Power, is that, by using this very formula, it spits in the face of every expectation of what music should be in the modern era.
In 2013 Foxygen quickly established their own identity by titling their album We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic. The 1960s pop sound made the tracks feel as if they had been lifted straight out of the days of Woodstock. If that album was the sound of Woodstock, the band’s latest effort is what that same music sounded like to the people who were on LSD at Woodstock. They are now the Ambassadors of Peace & Magic … And Star Power.
There are very few songs on this album that stick to any traditional structure. The singles “How Can You Really” and “Cosmic Vibrations” are two notable exceptions: Their pop structures make them sound like perfect companions to Ambassador‘s songs. Each have a stripped down 60s rock sound that harkens back to The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. Softer tracks like “You & I” and “Coulda Been My Love” display an intimacy that helps to balance out the distorted guitar sounds that take center stage over the course of the album’s 24 songs.
… And Star Power concentrates these more traditional songs at its beginning. Foxygen dives headfirst into chaotic, psychedelic jams starting at the four-part “Star Power,” the eighth song on the album. From this point on, it feels as if naming the songs wasn’t necessary, simply obligatory. Tracks such as “Freedom II” and “Talk” seem to be completely improvised and unedited. They included vocals that are mostly just random lyrics being screamed into a microphone and rhythm instruments that sporadically cut in and out. It feels as if they went into the studio, took drugs, pressed record and then just jammed without caring if the music came out coherently.
The six-minute song “Cold Winter/Freedom” blurs the line between experimental music and noise. It is eerily introduced via a child’s voice, made up almost exclusively of jarring feedback and ends with someone ranting about the “1 million dead dogs in space and spaceships” and people who “float around listening to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.”
At certain points the experimentation grows monotonous and uninteresting. Tracks like “Wally’s Farm” and “Hot Summer” have underlying synth parts that hint at a design but are smothered by a chaotic mixture of random sounds/vocals that leave them feeling repetitive and forgettable. However, their shortfalls emphasize the qualities of gems like “Everyone Needs Love,” “Hang” and “Can’t Contextualize My Mind,” which are able to strike a balance between experimentation and melodic uniformity. “Brooklyn Police Station” is one such song, which stays interesting by alternating between slower dream-like jams and punk rock in a way that somehow makes sense and illustrates the vocal range of singer Sam France.
… And Star Power isn’t easily palatable. The fusion of experimental tendencies and 60s pop structures leaves little room for any familiarity to be found on the album. But the album is still a long and trippy sonic journey.
As I listened to this album on the go, I had forgotten some of the places I’d been because of the immense amounts of distorted synth clogging my memory by the end. But I knew it was one hell of a trip.
Foxygen decided they were going to contradict every modern standard of music with this album. I thank them for that.
