The new album from Foxes in Fiction is called Trillium Killer. The band is Warren Hildebrand and assorted players. Hildebrand is the mastermind of Orchid Tapes, and that label is, naturally, the one behind this offering. The music of Foxes in Fiction is what I guess we'd called dream-pop, which is sort of a catch-all term for stuff that's a bit trippy, a bit breathy, and not nearly as hard or loud as most things called shoegaze. The tunes here are excellent, whatever you want to call them. That's the important point I want to make right away.
"Ontario Sunshine" eases us into things, while "A Softer World" is an elegant stab at Slowdive stuff. The cut nearly evaporates but a few precise chord changes in this elevate it into something almost like a hymn. Elsewhere, "Say Yes to Violence" is as light as air, even as it echoes classic numbers from Ivy and Dubstar, of all things. I reckon that Seafeel was also a huge point of inspiration for Hildebrand and the players here, but, wisely, Foxes in Fiction offer up rather fully-formed indie-pop throughout this album, with material like "Rush to Spark" and the title cut serving up the sort of subtle hooks we used to find routinely on Unrest records, or sides from Galaxie 500.
The music of Foxes in Fiction is polished and finely produced, such that the tracks on Trillium Killer reminded me a lot of all the stuff I used to listen to as a younger man in college. Wisely, this band expands the template of this kind of dream-pop, and rarely did anything here feel ill-considered. The whole album is lovely in just the right way, serious without being somber, and the sort of thing that charmed me far more than I expected it to.
Trillium Killer is out tomorrow via Orchid Tapes.
More details on Foxes in Fiction via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Foxes in Fiction / Orchid Tapes]