A not-so-hot foxtrot

This album is so much fun.

It’s just too bad the fun wears off once you get past Foxy Shazam’s Freddie Mercury-aping stadium rock shtick.

The Cincinnati band’s sound on their third album is immediately refreshing and ultimately deadening. How does this happen?

You can only go so far with music that is dark with a wink, and they’ve got that black cabaret thing down pat.

Hear “Wanna-be Angel” with this lyric: “I want my friends to think I’m awesome. / I want my friends to think I’m so punk rock,” lead vocalist Eric Nally warbles.

By the way, amid all the cacophony of sliding piano scales, horns and guitars that buzz like Hot 100 success, Nally’s voice shines. I love that he is unafraid to sound ugly and super unnatural. It’s cute if you like character voices. 

He sounds at times like Mika and at others like Michael Jackson and sometimes even like that dude from The All-American Rejects.

The whole record is dramatic as hell, glamourous and filled with prog-pop weirdness. But, unless you appreciate the “thea-TAH,” you might be left feeling a little less shazam and a lot more shaDAMN.