Foxing Bring Self-Titled Release to Life at the Echoplex

Written by Natalie Melendez

Graphic by Rebekah Witt

On stage at Los Angeles’ Echoplex, Foxing frontman Conor Murphy was keen to remind everyone that Foxing, their self-titled fifth album, is a labor of love. The St. Louis-based band self-produced, recorded, and released the new album—they even made their own cover art. Now on the road for the supporting tour, they’re also (as Murphy so proudly announced) driving the tour van themselves.

It’s no wonder this era of Foxing feels like the band at their truest selves. The four-piece are at the wheel of their creative evolution, exploring themes of nihilism and disillusion with an honesty one only finds in a mirror. The Eric Hudson-led production is no less impressive, often capturing intricate feelings with sonic landscapes just as large and messy, always perfectly balanced.

Performing the new songs live, the band is a well-oiled machine. Foxing can just as easily tear the stage apart as they can enter a moment of gut-wrenching silence. Set-opener “Secret History” saw Murphy whisper melancholic prose before swiftly exploding into a cacophony of Hudson’s blood-curdling screams and discordant guitar. The shoe-gazey “Gratitude” was quick to unfold into rage. But it was the breezy turnaround from Dealer’s (2015) angelic “Eiffel,” during which the band delivered their most graceful performance of the night, to the instantly rowdy “Hell 99” that truly captured Foxing’s ever-morphing essence. 

Perhaps the band’s flawless 180 transitions are a product of years of practice, pouring themselves out on a stage and then some, but there’s no doubt that their self-titled release has given the four-piece a new sense of confidence. Nothing they did in front of the audience that night ever felt forced or out of character — not the jokes between tracks, not the fistbumps or handshakes, not even their expression of gratitude towards the so-called “warm” and “inviting” Los Angeles crowd. And when Murphy lunged himself into the pit during “Nearer My God,” it was like a homecoming. 

Elsewhere throughout the night, the four-piece further nodded to their decade-long journey with “The Medic” from debut The Albatross (2013) and “Beacons” from 2022’s Draw Down the Moon. The night eventually ended with the surprise “Inuit,” a last-minute, beloved addition to the set. These older favorites didn’t distract from the main event of the night, rather they underscored the reason why Foxing feels so fully formed: it's a culmination of everything the band has been known for and everything they have yet to become.