Tag Archives: All-Night Fox

All-Night Fox reviews

The day I received Neil Michael Hagerty’s last album: The Howling Hex, I immediately got on to “my people” at amazon.co.uk (much cheaper/faster than buying from Drag City, at least for me), to order All-Night Fox, the new album from his new band The Howling Hex. OK so his band is called the same as his last album… it must be some kind of trick? Or is it MagicScience?

Yes and now I have the album. It’s good. HH is good because it has some great songs on it. ANF is good because it’s concept without being unlistenable. I’m not going to wax all lyrical here because frankly I can’t get most of the lyrics. But then I’ve only listened to it about 3 times. I just dig the rock music.

There are some silly/wordy reviews around spouting blabbering-crap as per usual. Don’t try and get revisionist on us, Billy Fields, cause you ain’t the bee’s knees. Any punk who starts a “hey the Trux sucked” sort of piece ought to be careful he isn’t getting a little too big for his boots. Billy Boy. In fact, after re-reading his tripe, I must say it’s good. Check out his other reviews cos this boy don’t know shit, but he can write just like anybody else!

The Howling Hex

Just got the seemingly ancient Neil Michael Hagerty album The Howling Hex. Oh believe the hype, boys and girls. It’s great. Even the wacky violin tracks. EVEN the bit that sounds a tiny amount like Manu Chao. This is an album I can enjoy summer to. So this morning, I only went and placed an order for the apparently even better All-Night Fox.

I feel all the anti-Transmaniacon emotion now. Cos while Jennifer has come up with some passably decent spoof-metal songs, and she has the skulls to prove it, The Howling Hex continues The Royal Trux better than anything Jennifer has come up with. I guess I could put on Transmaniacon and we’d sit round and sort of giggle at the OTT guitar and autotuning… the killer riffs and the ripped-off lyrics (from two great Trux songs, Shockwave rider and Sweet Sixteen no less). Maybe it’s got to do with the way I only really listen to Cats and Dogs these days, but the Howling Hex manage to continue the jazzy, rock’n’roll free music feel, the lyrics are good, and sadly I don’t even miss Jenn’s singing. Maybe her next work will be a bit more honest and less posture. She said all this shit recently in an interview about listening to the Rocky IV soundtrack for two months or something. “I like winners” she said. Well the Howling Hex is a fuck’s sight better than RTX.

So summer evenings aren’t far away… they get into your blood and lift up your soul. Girls in skirts, warm mornings, sultry evenings, beers on the terrace, tending my roses, late night sessions at Plaça Reial and the chiringuitos… Here we go……….