With a love for the musical excess of
Meat Loaf and
Queen,
Foxy Shazam storm flamboyantly into the night with their third album, the eponymously titled
Foxy Shazam. While the band is incredibly talented (especially the piano playing of
Sky White), the show is really all about mustachioed frontman
Eric Nally. Over the course of the album,
Nally’s performance is an homage to the theatrical bombast of charismatic greats like
Freddie Mercury and
Russell Mael (with
Nally bearing an eerie resemblance to the former). Backing up his big voice is the rest of the band, consisting of the standard rock setup plus piano and horns. The music combines the relentless drive and positivity of
Andrew W.K. with the dramatic flair of
Jim Steinman, with sweeping guitar riffs pushing the songs forward while the piano brings a pop sensibility to the whole thing. Given how big the presence of the music is, it’s really a testament to
Nally’s over the top persona that he’s able to stand out among everything that’s happening in the background while somehow never feeling forced.
Nally sings like a pop hero on songs like “Killin’ It” and “Wanna-Be Angel,” as if he’s confident he’s a superstar and whether or not anyone else knows it is inconsequential. With such a classic combination of pop and rock, this is an album that’s just dripping with crossover appeal, with big hooks for the radio and enough rock and emotion for the post-emo crowd to sink its teeth into. ~ Gregory Heaney