HOWLING HEX - All Night Fox

"All Night Fox" is the new work by Neil Michael Hagerty, prickly and visionary genius, the mastermind behind two of the most acclaimed outfits of the last twenty years, Pussy Galore and Royal Trux. Having left Herrema to contemplate her own inner ghosts, Hagerty has given us over the years genuine gems of toxic blues, first under his own name, now with the Howling Hex project (the title of one of his earlier records).

"All Night Fox" continues the discourse begun with "Neil Michael Hagerty" and "Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll", built on a distorted, psychotic sound, beefheartian to the core and at the same time reworked in a postmodern key, bolstered by sturdy punk veins. We're once again ready to prostrate ourselves before Hagerty's boundless creativity, but... hold on, this time something has jammed in the man's well-oiled war machine. The tracks in fact show a dull underlying uniformity, a "lack of variety" we'd never glimpsed in his previous work.

In the long run, "All Night Fox" tends to dwell on the same sounds and rhythms, partly due to a production that isn't dirty enough, and which sits awkwardly with Hagerty's radioactive-dumpster blues. Mind you, the songs are there: the latter-day PJ Harvey would kill to write something like "Activity Risks", a sped-up ballad steeped in sickly melodicism, or a track of the caliber of "Instilled With Mem'ry", which roars with creativity, writhing through a lustful funk-blues, a forward-thinking blend of Captain Beefheart and Contortions. Sincerity is not in short supply, and how can one not be swept up by rousing rock'n'roll numbers like "Pair Back Up Mass With" or "Soft Enfoldings Spreads", a sublime distillation of the Stones sound diluted in sulfuric acid.

A few tracks feel dashed off, a few others merely sketched, but genius and recklessness have always defined Hagerty's restless personality. This is Neil Hagerty, this is what he's always been, take it or leave it: if you don't mind, even amid the unevenness of "All Night Fox", we're taking it this time too.

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30/04/2026