When Laura Weinbach laments that “I’m Not Really In The Christmas Mood This Year,” on the song her group Foxtails Brigade released in December, she expresses a sentiment often felt, but rarely expressed in song—Christmas isn’t what it used to be. The San Francisco band will bring their holiday tidings of bad cheer to Anno Domini Gallery on Friday, as the latest in Corpus Collosum’s “The Uncanny Valley of the Heart’s Delight” series.
Accompanied by a soft bed of melancholy stringed instruments and a Rat Pack sophistication, it (and the rest of Time is Passed, Foxtails Brigade’s Christmas album) plays like the lonely, gloomy answer to A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra
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The deeper theme is the inherent sadness of growing up and seeing the world for what it really is and no longer through a child’s eyes. (“rain freezes to snow/all children grow old/and though the new year begins/a sweet little dream ends”) The fact that Weinbach has such a soft child-like voice, only punctuates the sentiment of watching one’s childhood slip away and not being able to do anything about it.
It’s no wonder the video quickly clocked in over 25,000 views. While not exactly viral, it did get triple the looks of any of their previous videos.
Foxtails Brigade’s previous album, The Bread and the Bait, is a no-less-sad slice of orchestral pop. The instrumentation never steers away from violins, cells, acoustic guitars and xylophones. The match of Weinbach’s masterful voice with the group’s obvious musicals skills, makes one wonder if they met in Julliard. But their songs are always balanced with the simple confessional quality of a coffee shop folk singer, making them as relatable as they are theatrical.
Foxtails Brigade performs Friday, March 30 at Anno Domini Gallery in San Jose, 7pm; $7.
.Foxtails Brigade Brings Christmas in March to Anno Domini Gallery
