Fox Face

A rock band from the Midwest, Fox Face started out playing furious punk rock before they evolved into a more complex, moody sound that incorporated accents of indie rock, garage rock, and hard rock. The group's performances are full of sneering swagger and amped-up guitars, and the rage of their music is articulate and down to earth, with bitterness focused on deserving targets (racists, sexists, and polluters among them). Fox Face made an impressive debut with 2017's Spoil + Destroy, a darkly melodic effort full of garage rock accents, and their sophomore album, 2021's End of Man, was a bigger and more ominous production that put their hard rock influences closer to the forefront. Fox Face were formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2009 by Lindsay DeGroot and Lydia Washechek, both of whom play guitar and sing. DeGroot had previously played drums in the Olives, and Washechek (aka Lydia Chioda) had worked with Gut Reactions, Static Eyes, and the Off-Days. While DeGroot's early songs displayed a pop-punk influence, it wasn't until she began dealing with darker and more personal themes (including politics and feminism) that the band's powerful sound began to take shape. Fox Face's lineup stabilized with the addition of bassist Mary Joy (aka Mary Hickey) and drummer Christopher Capelle, and in 2013 the group released a cassette simply titled Fox Face. In 2015, the band hit vinyl with the release of a four-song EP, also called Fox Face, which earned positive reviews and helped them gain a larger following in Wisconsin. In 2016, the band struck a deal with Chop Haus Records to drop another 7" EP, the three-song Teen Wiccan, and later the same year they introduced a cassette-only release, The Moon and the Tide, that collected material from their earlier releases. In 2017, Fox Face were approached by the well-established punk label Dirtnap Records (who had recently moved their operations to Madison, Wisconsin), which released the group's first full-length effort, Spoil + Destroy, that November. By the time the album arrived, Christopher Capelle had left the band and Chopper Chioda, formerly of the Midwest Beat, took over as Fox Face's drummer. However, Capelle would later return to the lineup, and he was behind the drum kit for their second long-player, 2021's hard-hitting End of Man.
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