Review Summary: "We always had the will, but we never had the means. We always had the nightmares, but we never had the dreams"
To this day I'm not even close to a fan of Four Year Strong, so the fact that Josh Lyford, their former keyboardist, was Foxfires' frontman was almost a dealbreaker. Two years ago when Foxfires released their self-titled 7", I bought it because, honestly, I just dug their signature "coffin" logo. I wound up falling in love with the song "Dogma," which almost made up for the album's
abhorrent production all on its own.
Now it's 2013 and Foxfires' second 7" EP,
The Golden Age has recently dropped on Cleveland-based label Escapist Records. This album is, by far and away, an improvement on nearly every aspect of Foxfires' sound.
The Golden Age, to be on the up-and-up, is a breath of fresh air in the stagnant New England melodic hardcore scene that, for almost half a decade now, has been completely and thoroughly dominated by the so-called "Wave" bands.
"Seven cages, seven hells, and seven deadly sins" Lyford belts out on "Crushed," providing one of the first examples of Foxfires' poignant and thoughtfully penned lyrics. Lyford has stepped up his game exponentially for this release, and the fact that
The Golden Age is properly mixed and mastered makes a tremendous difference. The band's musicianship is up to snuff as well, and perhaps the best example of their chops is the bold, brash "Gravity Is Honest," the song that this review's summary quotes. Like the Defeaters and Manners' of the world, Foxfires strive to paint a living, breathing watercolor with their music, and the result on
The Golden Age is stunning.
Foxfires will probably gain much more than a simple cult following post the release of this album. I expect they will garner quite a bit of support from the social networking side of the hardcore scene. I, personally, am very excited to see what they do next. If they manage to release a full length with the consistent quality of that they have shown on
The Golden Age, such an album would be, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a complete and total game changer in the melodic hardcore scene.
