The Foxymorons have been at it since the late ’90s but release albums pretty rarely, which leaves everyone with plenty of time (and good reason) to get excited by another record. Though the praise given to the band is frequently filtered through comparisons to other acts from the various heydays of power pop — the bandmembers themselves make it a point to note an affinity for Big Star and Pavement — on Bible Stories they craft a charmingly ramshackle collection of songs that render tracing steps in the annals of rock a moot point. The central duo of David Dewese and Jerry James trade off on the vocals and must attack their respective songs pretty differently: not that they specify who’s-who, but it’s clear that one is remarkably adept at delivering memorably conversational lines in raggedy, endearingly tossed-off little packages, and the other is more of a classicist in approach. This voice is the one responsible for the more lush and meticulous material, while the aforementioned occupies a comparatively ambiguous place, trading in the sort of substantive humor that may have given birth to the delightful absurdism of the album’s moniker, not to mention the band name itself. In songs of this persuasion, colorfully in-the-moment character encounters like “At the Dairy Queen you talk so obscene” strike a circuitous poeticism and fanciful interplay with the alternating instances where ever-active melodies take center stage. At the end of the day, they’re great as a collective, reveling in an outsider’s glory and bashing it out, and alternatively toning it down for high point after high point. The changing of the guards is used to maximum effect where the gorgeous lullaby “This Too Shall Pass” — echoing an Elliott Smith-by-way-of-Jeff Hanson quality in its disarming falsetto — is grounded by the ultra-satisfying guitar rock of “Say It Aloud.” Later, the amusing archetypical portraits of folks from the lateral opposites of Boston and Portland define dreams of escape on “Sick of California,” and the images are allegorical enough to offset the sobering narrative of a disenchanted band trying to make it in the modern-day climate. The joke, though, is really on the fair-weather friends who only “Tell you what you want to hear/’You’ll make the album of the year’”: the truth is, with this well-rounded stash of ten undeniably rousing Bible Stories, the Foxymorons have come awfully close.

It’s easy to hear why Pavement crop up when talking about Foxymorons, everyone has at least heard of them (Pavement that is) if not actually heard them. So you can take ‘Skinny Cow Blues’ as an example, there’s the title, the lyrics, the vocal phrasing, the ramshackle guitar solo and that seemingly accidental grasp of what makes a song work. A lot of people miss or dismiss that essential skill of Pavement, it sounds like it is so easy to do things slightly wrong so that it sounds better then it would if it were right. It takes guts and it takes wiles, Foxymorons have both and an encyclopaedic knowledge of Indie-Rock.

The smarts allows them not to be tied down easily, ‘This Too Shall Pass’ mixes soft rock with Fleet Foxes style harmonies. ‘Say It Loud’ bursts into life like a Buffalo Tom song. Their stylistic shifts do lead one into just spotting the quotations and connections, it becomes an end in itself, I can even hear the Monochrome Set in ‘We All Crawl’ which probably reveals more about me than the Foxymorons. But then this is self-referential music about music so it’s not totally unfair to pin ‘Sick of California’ as Granddaddy. For those like myself who found their musical identity through Pavement, Dinosaur Jr in those halcyon times before major label feeding frenzies when ‘This Band Could Be Your Life’ was a life this record lights little Proustian beacons, those fading synapses suddenly fire again. I know what I’m going to be doing tonight, it will involve the Volcano Suns and maybe some Big Dipper, it will be loud. So thanks to the Foxymorons for returning me to the lessons I learned in the old testament of my personal musical bible.

Meet The Foxymorons, a duo based in Texas/Tennessee that have been producing great music since the mid-90′s… and their style & sound is very indicative of their roots.

Currently on their 5th release, Bible Stories, these fellas blend nearly everything I love about Wilco-ish and Robert Pollard-ish sounds… while putting out a great album with amazing songwriting and fervor.

Add to that, on top of marking really awesome music – they started a pretty nifty clothing company called American Viceroy that sells (what they call) a “uniform for creative living”.

Clever dudes with clever music. Click the link below to here a few tracks courtesy of the bands website.

Best band name this month goes to those Foxymorons featuring the Texas/Tennessee pairing of David Dewese and Jerry James augmented by sundry hired hands. Their new release, “Bible Stories” (Foxyphoton Records #002) is none two shabby, either, chock full of catchy tunes and great hooks that makes you think they’ve been around for an eternity. Eclectic and stylish pop this most certainly is and nicely arranged too, as the boys alternate vocal duties although I know not who’s is who. One has a cracked vocal delivery that lends itself to the slightly quirkier songs such as the excellent “Skinny Cow Blues” and the harder “Say It Aloud”, the other a more straight ahead, high register voice that tends to grace the more conventionally melodic songs like “Out of Control” and “Sick of California”. It hardly matters who is who, there’s so much good stuff on offer and probably something for almost everyone (unless perhaps you’re still locked in the Drone Zone). Fans of Big Star and Wilco would do well to check these guys out, and will probably enjoy the occasional forays into Pavement/Dinosaur Jr territory as well. www.foxymorons.com

The Foxymorons aren’t your typical band. It’s the songwriting vehicle for two guys from different cities, Fort Worth’s Jerry James and Nashville’s David Dewese, who nevertheless have spent the past decade –– not quietly –– crafting smart, wry indie-pop. They’ve released several albums and garnered laudatory reviews in Pitchfork, Paste, and SPIN. A couple of years ago, Dewese and James also started a clothing line, American Viceroy –– James describes the typical AV ensemble as “a schoolboy uniform crossed with pajamas.” The clothes were featured on the web site of GQ magazine a couple of years ago. Of the label and the band, James said, “To me it all feels like it’s coming from the same part of the same aesthetic and part of the same spirit of wanting to make something.”
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Though separated by a few hundred miles, David Dewese (right) and Jerry James still get creative together.

American Viceroy is on the back burner now –– the clothes are not even available for purchase online (though they were carried in stores in New York City, Los Angeles, and Japan). Instead, Dewese and James are focusing on the band: They have just released a subtly brilliant and extremely catchy guitar-based album, Bible Stories. The goal now is to become a bona fide band, geography be damned. “We’re trying to book shows now, one thing we want to do a lot more of,” James said. “We want to make the band more of a living, breathing entity. It’s something to me that always feels alive, even if we’re long distance. But we’re planning on playing [more] shows and making more records.”

Dewese and James first met in high school in Mesquite in the early 1990s but didn’t become friends and collaborators until their college years, when Dewese was studying in Brownwood and James was at Southern Methodist University. They saw each other at home during breaks. The two were music aficionados and started mailing each other mix tapes. “The more obscure music, the better,” James said. Ultimately, music that Dewese and James wrote and performed separately began appearing on the tapes. “We didn’t necessarily think you had to be good at guitar [to write your own songs], and some of the songs that we knew and liked didn’t seem that hard to play,” James said. “That started it.”

With a friend, Dewese and James began performing and recording their material, using their church’s drum kit and recording equipment. “At some point,” James said, “I was like, ‘Why don’t we make a 7-inch single? It seems that all these other bands we like have done that.’ ”

Dewese eventually moved to Nashville, and James spent time in Los Angeles and Austin. (He received his MBA from the University of Texas.) But The Foxymorons never wavered. The band “just sort of evolved –– it’s just an aspect, an extension, of our friendship,” James said. “We meet up, hang out, we eat, and we mess around, and always at some point, somebody picks up a guitar and says, ‘I’ve got this song.’ ”

In the mid-’00s, Dewese and James added some players, put out a couple of albums, including the Pitchfork-approved Hesitation Eyes, and in ’06 played the SXSW Music Festival. “I thought we were going to put out [an album] the next year,” James said. “There was no intention to wait five years to put out a new album. But [Dewese] had been doing a lot of traveling … and then we started the clothing line. Our attentions had diverted to these other things. Life had sort of gotten in the way. Or just laziness.”

After the last shipment of American Viceroy clothing was made, Dewese and James both agreed that the time had come to make another record. “Songs had been stockpiling, and we weren’t doing anything with them,” James said. “I always knew we were going to make another record. We knew we weren’t over. We just didn’t know it was going to take so long.”

With help from some session players, including drummer Brian Fuzzell, pianist Chris Davis, and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Jerkins, Dewese and James holed up in Dewese’s home studio in Nashville and pumped out Bible Stories in a couple of weeks. “We have friends that spend a lot of time in the studio,” James said. “I don’t relate to it. We know the songs going in. They happen relatively fast. … I’m only there for three or four days, an extended weekend. A lot of that [time], we’re at the movies or at the bar or hanging out with our friends. Then it’s time to do work.”

Mastered by Centro-matic’s Matt Pence, who also did Hesitation Eyes, the new CD moves through highs and lows and has an ironic sensibility like an indie film from indie-filmdom’s halcyon days of the late 1990s/early 2000s. Starring in The Foxymorons’ melodic bursts are a “passion shark,” an “incandescent man,” and a “teenage typing queen,” among many other characters. Dewese and James share singing duties –– Dewese’s voice is sweet, smooth, and masculine while James’ is nervous, tiny, and cute. Every song is tightly structured and highly melodious. The duo rocks reverb-laden riffs almost as often as gently strumming or finger-picking acoustic guitars. One standout track is “Say It Aloud,” a hard-charging rocker in the spirit of Soul Asylum and complete with honey-dripping vocal harmonies during the chorus. Another hit is “Out of Control,” a toe-tapper built around a simple staccato guitar riff, snappy snare, and tambourine, the bridge formed by a refrain of ba-ba-dada-da.

The rest of the album is equally winning. “Sick of California” is a slow burn, its heavy bass complementing Dewese’s dreamy delivery. “Skinny Cow Blues” comes on like an old C&W ballad, with James at his cutest singing, “We never connect just right / Like a clumsy high five … that dressing gown’s awful tight / That dressing gown’s tight / But it’s alright.” “This Too Shall Pass” is an acoustic-and-vocals lullaby that calls to mind nothing less than “Dust in the Wind” (though not as melancholy). Another softy is “Meskeeters (Sweet Sixteen),” one of several songs about awkward teenage years. “Your boyfriend’s broke, you think it’s a joke, now you’re looking for an older guy,” James sings, his voice soft and on the verge of cracking, “So at the Dairy Queen, you talk so obscene, and you leave without saying goodbye.” Bible Stories could be the soundtrack to a sequel to Napoleon Dynamite or Rushmore.

“We’re writing songs that we want to hear,” James said. “I’m writing songs that I think are cool, that are interesting to me, and we share a common sensibility and reference points. And so we have this distinct idea of what we think is cool or what we think is interesting, and I think that’s it. … We want to make music that’s exciting and interesting.”

Nirvana “On A Plain”
Maybe my favorite song of all time. Wry, funny, stream-of-consciousness and terribly sad. I played the Unplugged version of this song too many times in 1994-95. It’s just sort of a perfect song for me. Oh, and that bridge, that bridge! Video

Big Star “O, Dana”
“I’d rather shoot a woman than a man” What’s he singing about? One of my favorite songs from a favorite album. Video

Miley Cyrus “Party In The USA”
Sue us. It’s summer. We drive with the windows down. This song always fits the moment. Video

The Mother Hips “Third Floor Story”
Oh man, this song was kind of the epic jam of last fall, at least for our gang. It’s sort of over-the-top and funky in a way that we could never pull off. Hilarious riffs and falsettos, faux-bitter lyrics and classic-rock moves that feel totally great and sincere, although I can’t help but think they’re being a bit cheeky. Who knows, who cares? Video

The Velvet Underground “Who Loves The Sun”
I just heard it on the radio the other day. This song has always ruled me. I like the simple sentiment and direct language. This is my favorite kind of VU song. Video

The Raincoats “Fairytale In The Supermarket”
This song and recording sounds so alive in a way that thrills me. I completely love Ana da Silva’s voice and that shouted chorus. Beautiful. Video

Centro-matic “Picking Up Too Fast”
Truth be told, I could’ve picked any song from this Texas band’s 2003 album, Love You Just The Same. Oh, just get it already will you?

No Age “Ripped Knees”
Two dudes who make a lot of cool racket. I like the spirit of the band, and this record really cooks. Video

Yo La Tengo “You Tore Me Down”
This album is perfect, and this Flamin’ Groovies cover is a highlight. Audio

The Nobility “Hallelujah Chorus”
Pop greatness from Nashville-based, analog-loving, tour-trekking underdogs.

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