FOXYGEN - We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

Not to be overly reductive about this, but anyone into the likes of MGMT (their main contemporary/fellow rearview-glancing American rascal-pop competition, it would seem) and/or Richard Swift (entrusted here with production duties on this official first full-length, following the duo's debut 12", Take The Kids Off Broadway) is urged to give these guys a listen pronto.

"The sooner you fumble your way through the unruly title of Foxygen’s latest LP, We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, the sooner you can get to the music, which is quite the opposite—immediately familiar and relatively easy to navigate. That’s not to say Foxygen’s generous winks and nods to The Beatles and The Zombies and Bob Dylan and Lou Reed and David Bowie (… and I can go on) don’t make for an engaging spin on the past. Members Jonathan Rado and Sam France do so with the necessary confidence and personality, and the right amount of TLC. They’re not far off from artists like Thee Oh Sees and Ariel Pink, who wear their influences like a red cape flapping in the wind without simply aping them." - Paste

"No one will accuse Foxygen’s We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic of being a concept album. It’s as stylistically diverse, maddening and confident as the Take The Kids Off Broadway EP, yet feels ready to enter the primetime—a band confident that their set of skills will be accepted, or at least tolerated. This is in part thanks to the deft production of Richard Swift, whose hand truly feels like a contribution rather than a contraption. Sonically, the music is still confounding, still prone to fits of vibing followed by un-fettered freakouts. And with Foxygen there always seems to be a nod and a wink with every riff and turn." - Aquarium Drunkard