All-Night Fox

Seems like Neil Hagerty has taken the name Howling Hex and run with it: not only is that the title of one of his best solo albums, it's now the moniker for another phase of his post-Royal Trux career. After a trio of vinyl-only releases limited to 500 copies, Howling Hex makes its CD debut with the excellently named All-Night Fox. After hearing this album, those who slept on the band's earlier work will be able to see why die-hard Hagerty fans snapped up those albums so quickly: All-Night Fox is some of his most audacious, entertaining music in a while. The album's fuzzed-out blues-rock is both more immediate and more unhinged than much of his Neil Michael Hagerty solo work, and though it's seemingly simple, with almost stupidly catchy bass lines and wiry, Southern-fried guitar licks that are too tightly-wound to be wanky, it's far from straightforward.