Loughrea break inspires new EP from innovative Fox Jaw

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

Limerick quintet Fox Jaw have a reputation for doing things their own way. Lying somewhere between alt-rock and post-punk, their sound has been subject to regular change over the course of the decade or more that they have been together. Their latest release, however, is Fox Jaw’s most focused, cohesive body of work to date. Without sacrificing any creativity, their third album is easily their most refined.

Breathe in the Strange was released on February 21. The eight-track LP includes last year’s singles Madeline and Let it Run, alongside a series of smooth, melodic rock songs and its release marks the beginning of a busy period for the group. On Thursday, March 26, Fox Jaw play the city’s Róisín Dubh as part of an Irish tour that is sure to showcase their new material. Relieved to have finally thrown the record into the world, guitarist Manolis Pates credits producer Mike Gavin with having a major impact on the finished product.

“We have worked with Mike before,” Manolis says. “He’s kind of had his presence in the band in some way for quite some time now. He engineered on the last full-length album we did, Ghost Parade, and he produced and recorded the songs for our last EP, Black Light Vignette. He’s in a band that we absolutely love, Windings, so we think of him as kind of a musical brother from Limerick. And he’s got all the know-how to make the sounds that are in our head come out the other side. We really wanted to work with someone who wouldn’t be afraid to tell us ‘you can do better than that’ or ‘how about this?’  –  someone who would really work with us and get the best out of us rather than someone you just pay to get the tracks down and be happy with that.”

Having held onto sound-files for months, release dates can be nerve-wracking for a lot of bands. Manolis notes the length of the journey it has taken Fox Jaw to arrive at this point and he credits a weekend in Loughrea with having a memorable impact.

“When we come to release time now, we kind of look back on the journey in hindsight,” he admits. “One of the first places we started with this album was in Galway when we did a songwriting weekend out in Loughrea. We got together for a few days in a house with just ourselves. We even cooked all our dinner so we had no time wasted – we just played and played. A lot of material came out of that . . . That’s where Madeline would’ve coalesced and crystallised and looking back now, it just seems so long ago because of the journey we’ve been on.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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