Foxy Shazam

Foxy Shazam! – The Flamingo Trigger / 2005 Self-Released / 10 Tracks / Reviewed 04 May 2005

Foxy Shazam! Plays a brand of music that I in no way expected from their white-heavy, washed-out cover. This is a brand of punk mixed with the double-bass of a band much heavier (French Passion of Animality Opera). Tracks begin and end before a listener can blink, and the rapid-change style of the band is reminiscent of acts like System of a Down, Voltaire and Temper Temper. The SOAD comparison is made clear during “No! Don’t Shoot!”, a track that has Serj-like vocals (done by Eric) and a harder-edge to the backing instrumentals. In a way, “No! Don’t Shoot!’s” delivery skirts the edge of odd-core bands like Atom and His Package and Gnarkill than any of the aforementioned band; in the latter two bands as well as Foxy Shazam! there is a distaste for structure that allows for much larger latitude in movement.

Each of the tracks on The Flamingo Trigger showcase a different facet of the band as well as being completely different stylistically from the tracks that immediately precede and follow it. For example, “The Aroma of You, Out There” recalls Blind Guardian as the same as time as it takes up the standard previously held by The Darkness. The music on “The Flamingo Trigger” is not done by a set of individuals trying to garner the largest audience possible, but really are solid examples of whatever genre Eric, Skylyn, Loren, Sky, and J find themselves in for that brief section of time. Each of the tracks may destroy the borders that divide rock from soul and country, but are acceptable to fans of all genres encompassed by Foxy Shazam!.

“The Flamingo Trigger” is one of the most encompassing discs that I’ve heard ever. This is what a rock-opera should be, as tracks tend to go back at times to earlier songs, creating a very visible thread that permeates the entirety of the disc. Where Green Day’s “American Idiot” was lauded for an all-encompassing approach to music that really only allowed them to vacillate between slow, whiny tracks and the same sort of pop-punk that they have been pandering for over a decade, Foxy Shazam!’s approach is as varied as modern classics like “Sgt. Pepper’s” or “Tommy”. The rich production and diverse sounds that emanate from “The Flamingo Trigger” will be enough to ensure that listeners will continue to listen and draw different things from this, a debut album that sounds like a veteran act’s magnum opus instead of an introduction.

Top Tracks: Brains of Vegas pt. 2 , No! Don’t Shoot!

Ratings: 7.6/10
- Neufutur.com

Spill It
Foxy Gets 'Trigger' Happy

By Mike Breen


Foxy Shazam! unleashes their debut album, The Flamingo Trigger, Wednesday in conjunction with a show at the 20th Century Theater in Oakley. Also on the bill are MOTH, Banderas, Fizzgig and Wigglepussy, Indiana.
With the chart success of System of a Down and The Mars Volta, much has been made about the rise of a more progressive, nonlinear spin on Hard Rock and Metal. Foxy Shazam! have little obvious sonic relation to either of those bands, but they do share a mindset, tossing the Rock handbook out of the van and backing over it repeatedly. Like John Zorn and Frank Zappa scoring Heavy Metal cartoon soundtracks, The Flamingo Trigger is a head-spinning whirl of songwriting experimentalism and aural adventurousness.

Similar to Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle project, Foxy Shazam!'s music has a maniacal, carnival-like dynamic that keeps you on your toes throughout the entire album. The group combines pummeling, heavier-than-God riffing and rhythms with more spacious fare, pulling in elements from the entire history of Rock music (from Metal and '50s to Punk and Surf). Miraculously, they often pull this broad-reaching task off within the span of a single song. Singer Eric Nally has one of the more unique voices in local music. Nally can "sing" well in the traditional sense, but his spastic howl is what's most drawing. Nally's intense, wild-eyed vocals manage to be both melodic and percussive (when he does the Metal "Cookie Monster voice," he might well be trying to sound like the real Cookie Monster). Keyboardist Sky White's work on the album creates another unique dimension -- his sometimes fluttery, sometimes dissonant pounding provides the backbone to this exceptionally distinct album. Though your average, pedestrian Rock radio fan would probably run screaming, there's something uncommonly accessible about their fearless explorations. There's a lot of humor in the lyrics (and with song titles like "October Surf Suitcase Fish," you get a sense of their abstract, eccentric frame of mind), but The Flamingo Trigger is seriously superb.

If you tire of the same old verse/chorus/verse cookie-cutting in Rock music, let Foxy Shazam! slap you around for a little while. When Nally sings the hook "Heavy Metal sucks and Rock & Roll's dead!" on "Seagulls of Rhinocerous Bay," you get the sense that he and the band really believe it. Consider The Flamingo Trigger their CPR.


- City Beat

Foxy Shazam is just crazy enough to work. If we actually tried to describe the music in terms of musical reference points (metal, punk) or compared it to other bands (Andrew WK, Faith No More), it might sound incredibly lame, but Foxy Shazam keeps surprising you in their songs. Bizarre twists and turns. Odd sounds. Simple, dumb hooks. All pulled off with panache. This could be great. - www.nashvillezine.com