Recorded at Devil’s Bridge Cottage in Wales, where band members, Danny Garland vocals/bass, Josh Gallop guitar/keys, Kieran Gallop drums and Alexander Shar guitar/vocals all recorded in separate rooms, giving the sound, a unique taste that may impress Gordon Ramsay.
Starting with ‘Charging Pale Horses’ is 59 seconds of sombre interval music; this did get me into a false sense of security until ‘Trophies in The Attic’ allowed my spider-sense to disregard with their short burst of riffs. Their melancholic vocals attack the mind like a scene from The Shining. If my sleep deprivation had a sound, it will be this…love it.
I’ve been meaning to catch PhoxJaw live, I haven’t, maybe lockdown prevented this, or my knees are creaking too much. But, seeing them live to see how they perform with those short explosions of vocals while maintaining a sound of growth. ‘Triple AAA’ has some powerful Britpop in this, more Biffy than the earlier sound. We move into ‘You Don’t Drink A Unicorn’s Blood’ has mosh fuelled moment, Oh I do love the unhinge feeling to this tune.
It’s impressive their adaptability as you get ‘Half House’ a catchy sound onto a slower, forlorn ‘infinite badass’ there is much happening with them and I have to listen to it more times to get either a lyric, such as “is there a cure…for this bellowing sadness”, or a riff…there is an abundance of motions to gain from tracking these guys.
The gothic intro of ‘Bats for Bleeding’ caught me off guard, then, my senses erupt as I feel an influence of Josh Homme with the Queens of The Stone Age cats. You know what, PhoxJaw is a highlight of the UK and Ireland music scene at the moment, since hearing A Playground for Sad Adults and now this their debut record, PhoxJaw enable me to be a melancholic, angst fuelled joy of listening to music.
Get it, people, it’s out now.