Boxer The Horse – French Residency

Band: Boxer The Horse
Album: French Residency

Written by: Chiara DiAngelo

Prince Edward Island’s Boxer the Horse are set to release their follow-up to 2010’s Would You Please on Tuesday, March 13th. Produced once again by Alec O’Hanley (Two Hours Traffic, The Danks), French Residency sees Jeremy Gaudet (guitar, vocals), Andrew Woods (guitar, drums), Isaac Neily (keys, drums) and Christian Ledwell (bass) experimenting with some different sounds. Offering a solid mix of peppy, upbeat tunes and slower, lo-fi jams, this record is sure to take up residency on your iTunes playlist for quite some time.

Opening song “Community Affair,” and single “Rattle Your Cage” are all jangly guitar and catchy choruses, perfect for the sunny days ahead. Intermingling these with quieter tracks keeps things interesting and means the listener never knows what to expect from one track to the next. For example, there is “Sentimental/Oriental,” which, while not a typical slow song, has a certain gentleness that gives it almost a lullaby quality; “Karen Silkwood” which features silky smooth vocals, poppy guitar and keys straight from the 80’s; and the distorted guitar on “Tough Luck” that perfectly captures the “womp womp” feeling you get when things don’t go your way.

Stand-out tracks include “Party Saturday,” which is exactly what it sounds like. There is a certain Brit pop essence to this song, with remnants of Eddie Argos (Art Brut) evident in Gaudet’s vocals. The line “There was a party Saturday, there was a hangover Sunday” itself should be enough to catapult it to the top of your weekend playlist. “Bridge to the USA” is perhaps the greatest surprise on this record. From shredding guitar and what feels like punk influences, to the intense vocals, turns it into a head banger – quite unexpected from an East Coast indie band. I can’t wait to see this one live.

Boxer the Horse will be taking French Residency on the road at the end of the month – touring with Said the Whale – and will land in Toronto on lucky Friday, April 13th, playing at The Great Hall. It’s sure to be a doozy of a dance party!