Fox Face - Spoil + Destroy (2017)

Witchy, twitchy and full of attitude, Fox Face is a fog-swirling, moonlit night where nothing’s as it seems. Blink, and they answer the question you didn’t even know you had. Both realized and reckless, Fox Face is an eerie musical force that would be just as much at ease holding a seance on a stormy, nighttime beach as they would be throwing a rager in a dark, beer-soaked basement bar.

Lead guitarist and vocalist Lindsay DeGroot is as comfortable in a Riot Grrrl shout in “(What You’re) Good For” as she is in the snarl of “I Believe In Science”, ambidextrously managing both pissed off and creepy, the words “I believe / In research/rationality” twisting like knives into her enemies. Fox Face’s explicitly feminist lyrics are undeniably bolstered by no-bullshit politics and inspired by the Book of the Dead and The Craft.

Spoil + Destroy is Fox Face’s first record for Dirtnap, recorded by Kyle “Motor” Urban at MotorCo Studio in Madison, WI, using an all-analog Ampex MM-1100 23" 16-Track recorder. Urban also recorded the band’s debut Teen Wiccan 7". DeGroot leads this storm of sound, with bandmates Lydia Washechek (guitar, vocals), Mary Joy (bass, vocals) and Christopher Capelle (drums) playing countless furiously energetic sets in their hometown of Milwaukee, WI, and beyond.

On the tongue in cheek Spoil + Destroy, Fox Face alternates between Sabbath-y vs. searing guitars (“Clever Girl”), surf-rock (“(What You’re) Good For”) and the creeped-out, organ-laced sonic seance of “The Moon and the Tide”. That realized and reckless attitude hangs hard on the vocals of everyone throughout, echoing the spirit of Kathleen Hanna and Neighborhood Brats’ Jenny Angelillo. This is what would happen if the Shivvers’ Jill Kossoris got pissed off and started plotting revenge on the date who didn’t call her back on the “teen line”, sitting “by the phone waiting for your ring”.

Fed up, Fox Face takes their own issues to hand, whether battling anti-feminist attitudes, panic attacks or the fear of the earthly unknown. Spaghetti Western styles intermingle with punk & roll and goth, making for a bubbling pot of riled-up, creeptastic tales, where the environs are trepidatious, dark and frustrating, yet you feel you can battle your way out. “You—you got this, you know you got this, you got it ‘cause you earned it.”