Skysketch – Fox Wedding

Art Rock | Indie Rock

90%

Picture if you will The Decemberists’ classic album The Crane Wife being re-imagined by Radiohead and you’ll have a fair idea of what the debut album from this Turkish band has to offer. Based upon a tale from Japanese folklore, Fox Wedding is as artful and cinematic as a living, breathing watercolour. As soon as the title track kicks in, with rising tension like the calm before a storm, you can just feel in your very core that you’re being taken on some grand spiritual journey. Album centrepiece ‘IKEOOSE’ feels like an adventure in and of itself. In the course of six minutes it takes the listener from menacing riffs and ambient sounds, to angelic vocals and intense, expressive drums. From the glitchy electronica and soaring falsetto of ‘I’m the Dust’, to the stunning two-part ‘Apology’ which shares both the most heavenly soundscapes and the heaviest riffs, the album weaves its way through various styles while still making them feel like steps along the same path.

I can think of few albums, concept albums or otherwise, that convey the kind of drama and mystique that is ever-present in Fox Wedding. The instrumentation pools together like a sonic melting pot to produce a sprawling wall of sound, and every so often some element of the song shines through the hazy soundscape like the sunshowers from the story. If you go through with a fine-tooth comb there are a few issues regarding the album’s length and occasional difficulty in following the narrative, but all debut albums have their loose ends, yet few so completely capture your imagination as this. It’s the kind of record that you’d nerd out about as a kid and end up having it become a defining part of your character at the time. Beneath the striking artwork lies one of the finest records of 2018, and needless to say it’s going to be on heavy rotation for a long while to come.