Hen in the Foxhouse | Look Up
(Independent)
Hen in the Foxhouse’s debut, Look Up, is a collaboration joining well-travelled Kingston singer/composer/lyricist Elena Sophia Krell and UK engineer/keyboardist Ru Lerner. The disc hints at Hudson Valley neighbors the Dust Bowl Faeries and Kimberly Hawkey, but the fey sense of humor and lush but never-overbaked production often recall, in the best way, a rural, rootsy take on Belle and Sebastian, whether on the vaguely Balkan “Whatever They Want” or the snarky “War on Little Girls.” Krell continually shows a real invention in marrying words to melody in unexpected ways. If reading the lyrics makes them seem overwritten, listening to them never does, which means the songs are doing their job. “Toothbrush,” with its clincher “Me and my house hope you are home,” puts a heartbreakingly tender spin on the pandemic. And “Animalistic” parallels a human relationship with monkeys “up there in the trees” who “feel the same.” Beautiful.
This article appears in November 2024.
