BIOGRAPHY
Off in the distance, the sounds of cities and towns groan,
rumble and heave. It might be bustling industry or some
strange storm that stuck around so long that inhabitants
forgot it was ever supposed to leave. In some places, it is
rumored that sirens are forgotten altogether. Can you
imagine? OMG! With this in mind, The Howling Hex
congregated. A tour had been booked and there was work
to do.
Working collaboratively with each other, the band
descended upon each city in turn. Nightly, they gathered
with the citizens and took note. Wherever The Howling Hex
went, they heard the sirens — howling, screaming, soothing.
They put them in the grooves of their new songs. Writing
songs on the road and playing them, night after night, led
them and us to this moment-defining statement: XI.
After all, Odysseus tied himself to a mast for a reason.
A piece of every city can be heard on XI. In fact, spin XI on and you will find as well several
states of mind and sound in the funky-swift, breviloquent songs. Think of The Minutemen
playing Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla” backwards (and underwater) to the post apocalyptic
denizens of Hendrix’s “1983” — but think fast because another song is coming and there’s a
riot going on. Guitar leads conversing with fat bass leads in front and behind you as
saxophones wail before stripped down drums, the frenetic beating of the conga and other
percussive instruments. This unnamable thing we know as rock is matched on XI with
sharp-eyed lyricism and a multiplicity of vocal approaches.
Every member of the five piece band contributes to songwriting and singing. The result is not
just rock ‘n’ roll, but also the very portrait of a grim dystopia, sculpted appropriate to the
landscape. You’ve never experienced today before today — and you haven’t heard XI before,
either.
The album is full of worlds on fire, antlers, ambulances and slaughter. The Howling Hex bends
and unblends genres, tapping into the mythical archetype of an emptied urban landscape:
some skulls rolling down a steep city street. But, wait a minute. These are thinking skulls,
brains intact.
Who is to say it can’t all happen all at once? The Howling Hex dares to differ on XI.
QUOTES
"Better known as half of Royal Trux, Neil Hagerty has released a handful of difficult-yet-rewarding solo records since the band split in 2000. The songs on All-Night Fox are downright catchy. McClure and Madison have lovey voices...Hagerty must've sensed what he had here by kicking off the reocrd with the appropriately named "Now We're Gonna Sing." And how." ~John Elsasser, Magnet
"Hagerty's...latest incarnation The Howling Hex have already produced three limited vinyl-only albums in the last year, but this collection on Drag City is their first widely available release. Opener 'Now, We're Gonna Sing' lasys its cards on the table to reveal an aces high flush swamp R&B psych-pop Captain Beefheart himself would struggle to out-trump. Lysergic dreams of the hit parade are also present on the male/femal call and response number "Activity Risks" or the slow burn march of 'Cast Aside The False', but elsewhere mutate into bad-ass riffing and dented chrome for wrong-side-of-the-tracks romps 'Instilled With Mem'ry' or 'To His Front Door.'" ~Nick Southgate, The Wire
"Neil Hagerty has made a career out of dimsantling classic rock n' roll and reassembling it in strange patterns. Likewise this, his second album as The Howling Hex, splinters '70's FM radio rock, adding dissonant guitar and folky hollering. As the work of a compulsive individual, it's [a] rewarding listen." ~Pat Long, Uncut (UK)
"You'll believe that Beefheart and Blue Oyster Cult were locked in an infinite jam throughout the 70's, as Hagerty answers the musical questions everyone was too scared to ask." ~Noel F. Garnder, Rock Sound (UK)
"All-Night Fox is probably the strongest distillation of Hagerty's aesthetic since his first solo record. It's also his best recording since the peak of the Royal Trux experience. All-Night Fox is streamlined music: there's a backbone to the kinetic relationship between bass and drums that's equal parts Beefheart and motorik, and Hagerty's guitar lines are pure mnemonics, spindly riffs and hooks that cycle throught the songs like cogs repeatedly clicking back into configuiration. The Howling Hex represents another articulation of that paradox 'so stiff it's funky'. ~Jon Dale, Signal to Noise
