P. Hux - "kiss the monster"
P. Hux (aka Parthenon Huxley) put out his first CD (on Columbia Records) in 1988. 20 years later he puts out his ninth album, "kiss the monster", and it's a perfect mid-tempo pop rock album. It has this timeless quality that reminds me of some of my favorite pop albums growing up by the likes of Joe Jackson, XTC, Marshall Crenshaw, and Elvis Costello, among others, and yet also sounds like more recent pop rockers like Gin Blossoms and Fountains Of Wayne.
Even though a good deal of the lyrics on "kiss the monster" aren't happy lyrics ("come clean" is about telling your partner that you cheated on them, and "crime" is about fucking up a relationship, among other songs on the album), the songs still musically made me feel good. Even a borderline easy listening ballad like "bones" manages to avoid being over the top and works, for me at least, in the way early Hall & Oates and more mellow songs by the aforementioned artists work.
A cover of the Beatles', "I'm looking through you", re-imagines the song as a jangly little ditty, and "better than good", the track which follows it, is such a great pop song, and sounded so familiar I was sure I had heard it before. It's a song everyone should hear, from an album I hope you will check out.
www.parthenonhuxley.com
P. Hux (aka Parthenon Huxley) put out his first CD (on Columbia Records) in 1988. 20 years later he puts out his ninth album, "kiss the monster", and it's a perfect mid-tempo pop rock album. It has this timeless quality that reminds me of some of my favorite pop albums growing up by the likes of Joe Jackson, XTC, Marshall Crenshaw, and Elvis Costello, among others, and yet also sounds like more recent pop rockers like Gin Blossoms and Fountains Of Wayne.
Even though a good deal of the lyrics on "kiss the monster" aren't happy lyrics ("come clean" is about telling your partner that you cheated on them, and "crime" is about fucking up a relationship, among other songs on the album), the songs still musically made me feel good. Even a borderline easy listening ballad like "bones" manages to avoid being over the top and works, for me at least, in the way early Hall & Oates and more mellow songs by the aforementioned artists work.
A cover of the Beatles', "I'm looking through you", re-imagines the song as a jangly little ditty, and "better than good", the track which follows it, is such a great pop song, and sounded so familiar I was sure I had heard it before. It's a song everyone should hear, from an album I hope you will check out.
www.parthenonhuxley.com