Foxing
“Indica”
Dealer (out now on Triple Crown)

While traveling through the Australian outback in my teens, my group and I were having the age-old “would you or wouldn’t you?” debate about whether you would kill someone if you were forced to go to war, when our grizzled guide turned around and gave our hypothetical some heavy reality. He recounted being confronted with child soldiers, whilst deployed at the height of the Rwandan Genocide. It was one of those stories that sticks with you, a glimpse into the depth of war with the horrifying clarity that can only be delivered by someone who experienced it firsthand.

Josh Coll of STL quintet Foxing is another with firsthand experience. A devastating post-mortem of time spent serving in Afghanistan, “Indica” is the rare war song penned from memories, rather than movies, books, or imagination. Erudite, poetic, and totally crushing, Coll grapples with what what he’s done and seen overseas and what it means for the man who came back. You won’t hear more affecting lyrics this year, and though Coll doesn’t sing them himself, vocalist Conor Murphy’s expressive vocal gives them extra weight. The prose is expertly paired with a lonely guitar, mournful military horn, and a touch of snare roll. It’s one of the most difficult songs I’ve heard this year, but also one of the most special.