Coming straight out of the musical scene of Quebec, Canada, Foxy Leopard is still reinventing the music experience in such a way that you can never have enough of it. Headed by the one-time ’90s nightclub dance DJ known for their never-ending burning passion for creation, this musical genius combines human emotions and future innovations like nobody else in this field. Combining deeply moving stories that touch upon our human side of being and innovative technologies of creating sound through AI, Foxy Leopard delivers a sound experience that seems to be at once timeless and disturbingly real. The latest and most amazing proof of this incredible musical creation comes in form of the song entitled “Children Of The War,” an emotionally stunning masterpiece that moves straight through your soul and touches your heart in the most unexpected way.
From the start, the listener can hear the wonderfully country-inspired melody played by the guitar that creates an absolutely enchanting atmosphere. However, the true magic is unleashed as soon as the vocalist starts singing. He possesses a truly amazing, soft, and velvety voice that brings alive each and every word he is saying and adds to the intimacy of the melody in an almost magical way. It is such a warm, genuine, and soulful voice that it is impossible not to get entranced right away. From those first notes, Foxy Leopard creates a wonderful mood that makes the listeners feel utterly enchanted.
“Children of the War” is the absolute epitome of the whole album by Foxy Leopard that is to be entitled “After” and is the song that not only kicks off the album but captures precisely why the album exists in the first place. Unlike most stories of the Civil War that draw their close, the story of After is where the story begins. The army has left, the battle flags have been packed away, the speeches made have all fallen silent, but there are still the everyday citizens bearing invisible loads. The song itself emerged out of an elegantly simple question of heart-wrenching poignancy—Who are the children of a war? Where the immediate answer suggests itself to be the new generation raised amidst the silent destruction of war, the artistic brilliance of Foxy Leopard takes the idea to a whole different plane. In his universe, a “child of war” does not pertain to any age group but a condition where a person’s life’s direction is altered forever by a battle that has been started by someone else, who cannot control or understand the situation. This tragic truth is brilliantly expressed in the first stanza of the song in the form of an old man resting on the road side and captured by the lines: “Old man sleeping by the way / Can’t say now what he fights for / Can we just help him win his war?”. Foxy Leopard’s universality in writing lies in the fact that he does not clearly identify what it is that causes pain to the old man. It could be the pain of a history associated with the Civil War, or it could even be the battle of being poor, traumatized, forgetful, old, or any pain that the old man bears in his heart and soul alone. Through this, Foxy Leopard brings a mirror to our face and asks us a deep question: Do we really want to see those broken souls, or just walk past them? It is in the second verse where this amazing expanse of narrative scope is kept alive, focusing its attention on a woman who has been left with the burden of raising her children with “one less set of helpin’ hands.” This touching episode connects “Children of the War” with another important song on After called “The Outlaws of Peace,” which describes the lives of Jesse and Frank James after the war. It is in the story of Jesse’s wife, Zerelda “Zee” Mimms James, where the author finds an emotional link. While Foxy Leopard does not provide a biographical account of Zee, he uses her character as an allegory to celebrate the untold millions of women whose struggle did not end on the battlefield but began only after it. And finally, in an absolutely brilliant piece of production, we get to hear the children themselves. Disregarding the falseness of the perfect studio kids’ chorus, Foxy Leopard takes things to an absolute level of authenticity, by entrusting some of the simplest yet deepest remarks to these innocent little voices: “Different men / Different roads / Different minds / Different goals.” While adults fail miserably in complicating the world around them, these innocent voices make it so clear and obvious. As uniforms crumble, causes disintegrate, and names are forgotten, humanity constantly comes into the possession of the ruins and the lessons of the past. And all of it boils down to the unshakable message of the song, which is “We’re all the children of a war.” The polished perfection of the final recording conceals months of hard work and struggle, illustrating once more that Foxy Leopard does not just create music; he carves human truths from sound.
Sonic-wise, “Children of the War” takes on a haunting minimalism approach that seems more like a recording from the early 1860s dug up from the soil of history than a piece of contemporary music crafted in a recording studio. With the raw sound of a steel-body resonator guitar, crying harmonicas, and banjo licks, the song effortlessly glides through an enchanting area where true historic folk, cinematic outlaw, and minimalist alt-country meet. But what makes Foxi Leopard’s approach absolutely astonishing is the sheer obsession behind this minimalistic approach. In order to create lyrics of such seeming simplicity, more than 40,000 words worth of concept went into consideration and well over 1,250 remixes, edits, and iterations were undertaken. Every single note had been measured out surgically—sentences were rewritten solely for their rhythm in relation to the rhythm of breathing, segments of music ripped apart and reconstructed, and the delicate balance of emotion between the lead voice and the children’s voices continuously refined. Whole iterations of the song were thrown out because of even the tiniest changes in the timbre of the voice, or even a wrong second of silence. The end product is specifically constructed around a voice that is old, hoarse, simple percussion, and a children’s choir that remains perfectly imperfect instead of perfectly polished. Through the preservation of tiny squeaks of fingers sliding across metallic strings, natural breathing, and relaxed, organic timing, Foxy Leopard creates a piece of music that breathes, bleeds, and lives, music that is truly perfect only when it comes straight from the soul.
Foxy Leopard isn’t just following fleeting fashions; rather, they are way above all of those and creating an immersive universe of life through their breathtaking artworks, and “Children of the War” serves as the ultimate confirmation of this fact. The minute nuances, the intricate lyrics, and even the hints of raw instrumentation have all been crafted with utmost perfection. Being a loyal fan of their music for quite some time now, I find myself constantly stunned by the depth and sincerity in which every piece of theirs is crafted. Foxy Leopard is at work in such a realm of genius creativity that very few artists in the industry can ever dream of.
Stream “Children Of The War” on Spotify
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