We’ll get into the gracelessness in a little bit, but first let’s take a step back and admire the embarrassing amount of glib, retro sensibility Foxes! wholeheartedly indulge in for 35 minutes. Boy and girl making complicated rhymes in yippy phrases – “I loved you so/meh-tro-sex-shu-uhl” – signed to a microscopic label like we’re still caught in an epoch where self-releasing is a pipe dream. It is very British indie-pop, old British, rose-colored British: the obvious C86/Smiths/Slumberland rigmarole applies. Knotted-knee harmonies, butterflies fluttering up and down both of their hearts – neither of these kids were probably old enough to remember the golden age of this stuff, but they’ve got the internet and a pair of studious minds (they are based in Oxford after all!). They’ve crossed their ‘t’s, dotted their ‘i’s, and emerged with a record I have absolutely no doubt was the one they wanted to make – the question is if it’s the album you wanted to hear.

You could easily turn that previous paragraph into an ugly outcry. These guys think they’re clever enough to mine the same tired, needlessly-overwrought influences? UGH, I bet they think they’re so cute with that metrosexual rhyme. Quivering boy-girl melodies over innocent chimes, playful guitar, and schoolhouse ambivalence? A lyrical posture that scarcely gets beyond love and not being in love? Its like ‘Young Folks’-core all over again. You’ll dig out those forgotten Boy Least Likely To records jus because the resemblance is uncanny. Yes, your appreciation for Foxes! is entirely dependent on how willing you are to give them the benefit of the doubt. Do they write the right songs? Well, they don’t write the wrong songs. ’6 O’Clock’, ‘Oh Rosie’, ‘Who Killed Rob?’ are all perfectly capable low-stakes indie-pop morsels – but in a culture of year-end lists it’s hard seeing Foxes! sticking around for long.

If you’re someone like me, and if you’re reading The Line of Best Fit, as there’s every reason to believe that you are, Foxes!’s self-titled debut is pretty far outside your range for investment. However, all that said, it’s pretty hard not to root for them. I hope some inwards-turned kid stumbles on their songs completely unfettered by the meddling, bogus context of similar sounds, and falls in love with the way they sing about being in love. If anything it’ll offer some needed psychology. You love Foxes! because they remind you of a generational-gap, not necessarily for their music. A record that isn’t resonating certainly doesn’t make it a negative experience, just a demographically restricted one. These kids are too forthright not to be respected – dissolved songs be damned.