Foxwarren are primarily known as Andy Shauf‘s original band, but they are more than just that. The group, which is comprised of Shauf (guitars, keys, vocals), Dallas Bryson (guitar, vocals), and brothers Darryl Kissick (bass) and Avery Kissick (drums, percussion), played together for almost a decade before their lauded 2018 self-titled debut. After a successful tour in 2019, multi-instrumentalist touring musician Colin Nealis became a permanent member, and they headed into the studio for a follow-up to their long-player. In retrospect, the half-dozen tracks they laid down sounded flat, so they scrapped the sessions, only to come at it from a different angle.
Trying a unique approach, the band members, spread across Canada, recorded bits of material in their home studios and uploaded them to a shared folder. Each week, Foxwarren would convene virtually to discuss. Shauf then plugged the fragments of music into a sampler and constructed songs from that material, and what derived from that process was 2. The album is at once more engaging than it sounds and equally distant, as it lacks the genuine feeling that made them so endearing in the first place.
While Foxwarren’s unique approach was not directly attributed to the global pandemic, it certainly aligned with how most musicians pieced together their livelihoods. Like a not insignificant amount of material that came from that period, the result is serviceable, even if the process was not natural. Each of the group’s records sounds vintage, but whereas their self-titled debut integrated the warm hues from early 1970s Laurel Canyon, 2 hearkens back even further to when Victrola players were coming into fashion. Gone are the Whitney-like harmonies and warm tones indebted to Sky Blue Sky-era Wilco.
Foxwarren lean into the fact that 2 has been pieced together by adding multimedia clips and vintage strings, the exact production one expects from an Avalanches record. The spliced approach serves as a reminder that the LP was manufactured on a computer, not recorded as a band in a studio. Nearly every track features some embellishment, and while some of it becomes catchy after repeated listens, not every sample lends itself to the finished product. Most do, however, fit the tone and texture of the track, demonstrating the considerable attention to detail that was given to the process.
Ever since Shauf’s first celebrated solo effort, The Party (2016), he has become best known as a weaver of tales, primarily the lived-in kind. His songs reflect everyday realities and capture the trials and tribulations of the people who inhabit them. For Shauf, the fictional is only slightly less authentic than real life, and that belief resonates with many fans who have become captivated by his storytelling. On 2, Foxwarren include vignettes laid out in fragments, with the benefit of a single narrator, Shauf serving as the unequivocal leader of the group.
Due to Shauf’s success as a solo artist, the group have taken great pains to ensure listeners know that this is no side project, even if he orchestrates the whole thing. The contributions by other members must have been solid because the music slaps, as exemplified by the charged guitar solo on “Say It”, the groovy bass on “Strange”, and the jaunty guitar lick on “Deadhead”. From that standpoint, Foxwarren becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
On “Listen2me”, Shauf even moves from his tender, soft-spoken self to a domineering character to match the track’s fuzzed-out stomp. As somebody desperate to be heard, he delivers a single parting blow: “Once I open my mouth / You’ll see how sharp I really am.” That is just another example of how the band takes on a different tone than anything that came before.
Foxwarren had momentum following their initial effort, but fans were eventually led to assume it was a one-off record or the culmination of that first project. The release of 2 is certainly a welcome surprise, even if the band brush aside much of what made them so compelling in the first place. Shauf sounds reenergized with his group, or perhaps his fans will find renewed interest in his music after a few middling efforts. Even with the asynchronous songwriting process, Foxwarren deliver some exceptional songs that help them recapture their place in the indie scene.