FOXING - Nearer My God 2xLP

Label: Triple Crown Records

St Louis' Foxing knew exactly what they were getting into by interpolating “Nearer My God to Thee” as the title of their third album, which was already tempting fate—there are few things that indie rock artists are less willing to publicly admit than the desire to make a classic album, but this is exactly the challenge producer Chris Walla placed before them and the one they go to every possible length to meet.

The record tackles such weighted subjects as religion, mental illness, political instability, global disaster and the near constant sense of impending doom. The band reflects these feelings in the album's own title which is taken from the name of a 19th-century hymn said to be the song played as the Titanic sank and used in the now infamous CNN doomsday video meant to be aired as the world ends.

However, among the dark subject matter, the band delivers an album that is, without a doubt, their most immediate, complex, sonically grand and focused work yet.