My new favourite band this week is Tucson/LA’s Foxx Bodies. And no, it’s not just because I have a thing about foxes*. Foxx Bodies are the new punkstars on Kill Rock Stars and they rule.

*OK so I do have quite the Fox thing. I’m not saying that my husband’s last name was the reason I married him, but let’s just say I definitely saw it as a sign that he was the one, as I had indeed decided as a teenager that “Cassie Fox” would be an awesome name. And I do have a house full of fox, you know, stuff. Fox paintings and fox mugs and fox towels and fox outfits to dress my children in, you know. Even our cat looks a bit like a fox. Foxes are the best. So when bands come along, and they’re punk as fuck, and they have the fox thing going on, I pay attention. And rightly so!

The band’s second album ‘Vixen’ (hello!) came out on Friday and it’s every bit as hard-hitting, rageful, playful and glorious you would hope it to be, having been recorded and produced in Seattle by John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill). Mental illness, gender, trauma – it’s all here laid bare, with some kickass punkrock.

The band describe it as the “sound of joyful catharsis”:

“It’s the artistic manifestation of four friends – vocalist Bella Vanek, guitarist Bailey Moses, bassist Matt Vanek, and drummer Adam Bucholz – locking arms and eyes, in full support of each other’s efforts to dig through layer after layer of compacted grief, trauma, pain, and fury.”

Listen to it here while you read the cute 5 question interview that these megafoxes did for us:

1. Hello Foxx Bodies! What’s your band manifesto?

Chaos reigns, finger in my butt, suck my ass, fuck you. Fuck off (sorry sorry sorry).

2. What’s the BEST song on the new album?

Bella: The realest answer to that question is we all have different favorites and we all have different reasons.

Adam: Victim One…it’s got dimensions to it; there are so many different emotions that get brought up throughout playing the song.

Bailey: I like Room because I feel like I grew into that song… when I think of it, I think of how we went

to that Chinese restaurant to get those little clinky clinks at the end…

Bella: I also enjoyed how much John [Goodmanson, producer] was like, ‘how did you guys write this song? It’s all wrong! It sounds good but I can’t tell what you’re doing because…it’s wrong.

Matt: Is there an interlude? I choose that.

3. What song do you wish you’d written?

Bailey: ‘Ozma’ by Shannon and the Clams…I wish we wrote it because it’s so simple that like…we could have written it! Or Brakes by Little Red Car Wreck.

Matt: I wish we wrote ‘I Sweat.’

Bella: OH MY GOD. That’s the answer. ‘I Sweat’ by Acorn Bcorn. We were devastated. We wrote a great song and we were like, ‘we’re gonna fucking play it!’ and then we went to a local show and realized it was already a song that we had heard.

Matt: It starts being performed on stage and then these two [gestures to Adam and Bailey] look back at me and they’re like WTF…we had even performed it recently! We only performed it once.

4. Pass the mic – who are the top 3 contemporary artists you’d like us be listening to right now?

Lando Chill, Suzie True, Acorn Bcorn

5. Draw us a picture.

Adam: This is basically pieces of art that I never finished that have finally found their home. Looking at it now, I can appreciate being able to go into my sketchbooks and cut out sketches that otherwise don’t mean anything to me, to put them somewhere that gives them meaning. Much more satisfying than finding magazine clippings.