In The Garden Of Love With You

Foxygen “Avalon”

If you are a musician skilled in mimicry, glam rock is your friend. There’s never any need to be authentic, and you’re only limited by a lack of shame and/or a lack of funds. Foxygen gave up on shame years ago, and now they’ve got the budget to back themselves up with a large orchestra, so you’d better believe they went well over the top on their new record. “Avalon” is gloriously artificial, bouncing around between ‘70s touchstones both unimpeachably cool (Bowie) and perennially tacky (Meat Loaf), and like, actual musical theater. This is theatrical rock that sounds like it aspires to actually becoming gleefully dorky Broadway razzle-dazzle, as though the record won’t be truly finished until it’s a jukebox musical. It’s all kinda-sorta a joke – on some level they’re goofing on musical tropes as much as they’re embracing them, and I am certain you’re meant to smile and go “wow, they really did that!” when you listen. But there’s no way you invest this much time and craft and personality into something you think is bullshit, unless bullshit is your absolute favorite thing in the world. And with these guys, I think that could be true.

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