Foxwarren "2*

88126-1 / Anti- Records 2025

Pitchfork Review 

Cards on the table time I Am obsessed with Andy Shauf,

His run of solo albums from The Bearer Of Bad News (2012) through to last year’s Norm have become some of my favourite albums of all-time.

To my ears, no-one can tell a story in song as well as this seemingly introverted Canadian. The economy…the wit…the ‘song-cycle-concept-album-cinematic-narrative-arc’-ness. Don’t ever get stuck with me at a party after asking me who I’ve been listening to. People glaze over in the force of my evangelical zeal.

Of course, my zealotry is only increased by the fact that – 99% of the time – my reluctant potential-convert’s initial reaction to the name Andy Shauf is to ask ‘who?’ The intricacies of the burgeoning Saskatchewan singer-songwriter scene have not always made it to the suburbs of Southampton.

So, a new Shauf-centred album is always a glorious prospect for my ears, even if it bears the name Foxwarren, the band that Shauf plays in with brothers Avery and Darryl Kissick, Dallis Bryson and – newly recruited from Shauf’s touring band – Colin Nealis.

It’s tempting to see Foxwarren as Shauf’s ‘side-project’, a folk-rock Tin Machine or less-lubricious Grinderman. The reality is more nuanced, however: Shauf has been a member of the band for seventeen years now, predating his solo success. The first Foxwarren album – released in 2018 but a decade into their musical lifespan – was a more direct, Neil Young-channelling contrast to the quirky nuances of Shauf’s contemporaneous albums – The Party and The Neon Skyline. Foxwarren was the sound of the famously perfectionist Shauf – he plays every single note on every single instrument on most of his solo albums – letting his hair down. This album is equally playful, but the ‘hair-styling’ comes in a very different flavour: maybe a selection of decidedly brash wigs? Foxwarren’s 2 is as palette-cleansing as its predecessor, but simple and direct it most assuredly isn’t.