The Kick, by Foxes

The Kick was released in early 2022, less than a year after an EP release and about five years after her previous album. An album gap of that long suggests that a singer is no longer interested in playing the music chart game and it is little surprise that despite the fact that this album was critically acclaimed and that nearly half of the songs on it were released as singles, that the album itself never even charted on the main UK album chart and apparently none of its singles charted anywhere either. None of this is any indication of the worth of the album, though it admittedly does dim my enthusiasm a bit to listen to an album that has no real popularity, nor any songs that I have heard before, from an artist I am not particularly familiar with, aside from here work on Zedd’s “Clarity,” a song I happen to like well enough, I suppose. Will this album be as a good or even have any songs as good as that one was, even if it’s pretty clear that nothing on this album was remotely successful as a single, probably because Foxes is now an independent artist without a lot of promotion? Let’s find out, I suppose.

The album opens with “Sister Ray,” a cautionary tale of a woman who is dancing and moving too fast to fall in love, along with a clear and pulsating dance beat that sounds like it would the sort of song that would work both to dance at the club with as well as to listen to in the lonely nights in one’s own home. “The Kick,” the album’s title track, follows, and it too has the sort of beat and sound that would have fit in nicely alongside “Clarity,” and another message that reflects on somewhat darker times about how to cope and deal with struggling with the world’s problems. “Growing On Me” reflects a somewhat ambivalent situation where someone wants communication but simultaneously doesn’t want to talk to others, a relatable but ultimately frustrating situation, with a somewhat basic sort of beat. “Potential” reflects again on a relationship with potential that is nonetheless filled with anxiety, impatience, and concern and a minimalistic dance beat. “Dance Magic” explores a dysfunctional relationship full of drama and alcohol abuse that both partners appear to prefer to a sane relationship, where the dance of romance makes everything else seemingly easy enough to take despite the lack of stability. “Body Suit” is a gentle and jazzy dance ballad that expresses the singer’s vulnerability in letting her partner inside her titular body suit, symbolic of her walls and armor that shield her from emotional intimacy. “Absolute” is a somewhat repetitive song that celebrate the intoxicating feeling that the singer feels with a partner that leads her, strangely, to feel dissociated from her body. “Two Kinds Of Silence” is a post-breakup song that muses in a melancholy way on the silence of poor communication and the hurt that comes from a breakup, an obvious single that somehow wasn’t released as a single from the album. “Forgive Yourself” is a lovely and energetic song that reflects on healing and self-kindness and the need to escape from the suffering in dance. “Gentleman,” perhaps somewhat predictably, gives a verbal dressing down to a man who was anything but a gentleman in playing with the singer’s heart and not intending on staying for the long haul. “Sky Love,” one of the album’s singles, appears to reflect the singer’s view of a heavenly love that is able to overcome the singer’s general numbness and leave her completely changed as a result. “Too Much Colour” ends the album on a melancholy note, with a somewhat moody ballad that reflects on a disturbing sort of dream.

In some ways, this album seems like it came a bit late. Not only does its sound harken back to an earlier time in Eurodance where the beats were usually clean and polished, but the approach of this album, with its themes of anxiety and the struggle for intimacy and the experience of trauma, sound much like they would have fit in on a Covid-era sort of dance album where people are dancing alone in their rooms because they are not allowed to assemble together and dance within six feet of others. Fortunately even if the song lacked hits, and the album as a whole has not been streamed or sold to a great degree, this is an album whose critical praise mirrors its quality, at least to my own ears. I was surprised and pleased at how much I liked this album–not every song is great, but at least the top eight or so songs on this album are extremely good, and a few of the songs are great, including “Two Kinds Of Silence,” “Body Suit,” and “Forgive Yourself.” This is a rare dance album that makes you feel a great deal of compassion for the singer and makes you think about the effects of trauma on intimacy even as it seeks to make you dance, and that is a rare combination of achievements.