30 years into this game of Boston Punk Survivor and Fox Pass Outlasts, Outplays, and Outwrites the competition. 2006 and we finally get the first Fox Pass album and it is a sweet success. They have released a generous heaping of pop tunes; ringing 12 strings throughout. Punk you can power-house through and come off just fine, pop music however, requires a few tricks. Macey and crew have the chest of chords, lyrics and musical twists that good pop needs. At alternate times during a song. I'm captured by a melody, a guitar riff, a lyric or the sound of the instruments: it's an embarrassment of riches
    Child's Play is so good I keep playing it over and over and never getting to the rest of the CD. The song signals the CD's strengths: group vocals, clean ringing guitar tones, strong melody, and solidly written material. 
   Hit or Miss has this over the top lyric treat.:
"The twist
Is like this,
The cold kiss 
From your lips
Always is,
Hit or miss."
    Michael Roy tops of Hit or Miss with an ending solo with a gritty tone that almost steals the song. 
   If you can resist the 12 sting intro to Saturday Girl you're a better person than I. I get pulled in and pine for that Saturday girl myself. The song is a real highlight both here and played live. Other favorites are Here Comes the Karma and You Don't' Know Me. 
   It is gratifying to see the CD getting attention from places like Kool Kat Musik an outlet for current pop. It proves that Fox Pass fit in just fine in 2006. How amazing is that? Full of talent and a real work ethic it's going to be fun to see where they are going.
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The CD opens with the droning, psychedelic guitar laden "Child's Play". This is an invitation to a journey of love marked by lush, multilayered harmonies. It evokes the romanticism of The Zombies' "Time Of The Season". On "Hit Or Miss", Jon Macey laments something that haunts him as he channels Dylan perfectly on the line "You would agree that freedom could be stripped right away from me!" "The Wonder of Tomorrow" continues the Beatlesque, Revolver reminiscent, free-floating sensation of "Child's Play". "Saving Grace", sung by Mike Roy, burns with palpable heat-a "Sexual Healing" for the millennium. "Love For Love" is power pop that never goes soft due to the rock solid rhythm section of Steve Gilligan (bass, vocals) and John Jules (drums)."Dream Inside Your Heart" speaks poetically about the power of the unseen-"shadows in the dark/diamonds in the water.." "Sometime Saturday Girl" is Americana rock 'n' roll personified-a 12 string Rickenbacker and a 12 string Dan Electro blasting through Vox AC 30 speakers. There's not a musical misstep among these roots rock gems, which are given just the right sheen by Fox Pass producer, Barry Marshall. (Nancy Foster)
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Although this was a late 2005 release, this disc will land in my Top Ten for the year, and the song "Sometime Saturday Girl" is a contender for Song of the Month honors. Fox Pass is a Boston band led by the talented Jon Macey. This time around, Macey and his bandmates have embellished their repertoire with plenty of ringing Rickenbacker riffs. "Here Comes The Karma" sounds eerily like Sid Griffin (Long Ryders, Coal Porters, Western Electric); several tunes sound like classic Tommy Keene songs; and "Sometime Saturday Girl" reminds me of Blue Rodeo with 12-string accompaniment. This is top-notch pop! Long may you run, Sir Jon and Fox Pass!
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The mark of craftsmanship on songs like "Hit Or Miss", "Saving Grace" and "Dream Inside Your Heart" would be hard to find on many "debut" albums, and 32 years after their 1972 formation in Arlington, Massachusetts, Fox Pass bring insightful lyrics and strong melodies to the world on their first full album. Of course having released a classic indy single with "I Believed" in 1976 - a year that saw them opening for Roxy Music in Boston - with the duo of Mike Roy and Jon Macey heading off to Mercury Records to record two albums with Tom Dickie & The Desires in the early 1980s, well, this debut is actually more like a diamond hewn from decades in a business rife with uncertainty. Barry Marshall's production crystallizes the performances - taking a "Sometime Saturday Girl" to bring that Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart vibe into the new millennium. Marshall has known the group almost since its inception and truly understands the work of Jon Macey and Mike Roy better than Ed Sprigg and Martin Rushent did for the Tom Dickie albums - all due respect to the highly competent Sprigg and Rushent. The chemistry between the artist and the producers on those Desires albums just wasn't there. And with no label pressures the band is free to come up with fine pop tunes like "The Easy Way", material that effortlessly flows from their repertoire. Roy sounds like Ben Orr of The Cars singing the exquisite "Heavy As A Heartache" with neo doo-wop vocals from Macey and bassist Steve Gilligan, he from The Stompers debut album also from the 1980s. While the group's influences are very well disguised on this set - you'll hear pieces of sounds you just can't place - the key is that the music seems more original because the band is plagiarizing their own riffs from years past. Some of the ambiance of the Jon Macey/Barry Marshall tune "Comical" from 1993's Too Much Perspective disc is reinvented on "Dream Inside Your Heart" - a terrific hook over a gliding and airy bed of pop riffs and chord changes. Its complexities are vast compared to "Wanda", the closing song that the band has performed since it was written back in 1973. "Hit Or Miss" might come in at close to six minutes, but it has the groove and guitars suspended in space to be radio friendly, playing perfectly on an album where songs like "In A Dream" come in from out of nowhere, sparkling pop created by a band that was doing it years before R.E.M. formed and brought this style into vogue.
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