Atlanta-based music group Blackfox has dropped Blackfox4, a bold and very collaborative album, which demonstrates the extent to which the outfit has evolved during the past decade. The band began as a three-member swamp-rock group and has now grown to a seven-member group that can switch between punk frenzy and sweeping art-rock with ease. It is like a reunion with this new record. It was influenced by extensive rehearsal, paying much attention to detail, and a new sense of creative direction after the pandemic years.
Throughout the album, the three lead singers in Blackfox have a variety of opinions about love, loss, hope, and how people can and do get to know and influence one another in complicated ways. Classics, such as Beaming, become brighter with guitar strings and forceful voices, and other, such as Difficult, are more of a Springsteen-style warmness, a plea to get better and understand each other. The album concludes with Sacred, which is a gradual, progressive-type song which evolves into being both powerful and highly emotional.
The thing is that Blackfox4 is distinct in that the collective is willing to evolve and develop. The album features heavier rock elements, intricate vocal scenes, and wider instrumentation options, which reflects a company that is entirely reaching its creativity potential. Blackfox continues to expand, experiment, and provide surprises with new music already in development. This will be an opportune moment to seek what is involved in their creative process even further.
Listen to Blackfox4 below
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What was the main inspiration behind “Blackfox4”?
Stacey: This album is about last chances (Running Out of Danger, Difficult), failed relationships or death (Goodbye This Time, Strangers, She Died Inside), and resurrection/hope/moving forward (Jump, Sacred, Bring your Fire).
Monica: We were deciding which of the many, many songs Stacy Cargal has brought to us to put on the album.
Mitch: A desire to fuse the energies of ‘80’s, 90’s, 00’s, up to now, with the diverse variety of styles we all possess. The result is an amalgamation of all those things.
Jim: We started with over two albums worth of songs and worked up, at least initially, all of them to see how they were shaping up. We selected the group of songs that seem to fit together best. The others were put aside until we started preparation for our next album that will come out in 2026.
How does this album differ from your previous work in terms of sound and themes?
Stacey: This is our band stepping into its power, bringing our fabulous female vocals and our collaboration forward.
Monica: The new record is a lot tighter (Power punch of Rock and Roll) than Embers and La Brea. Those previous albums are spacious and layered in sound.
Andy: With this album we deconstructed some of the songs brought in and then rebuilt them. We changed lead vocals on some and really used voice as an instrument. This seemed to allow for some more creative takes on songs.
Mitch: The 3rd album was a post covid ode to the ‘70s! The 2nd was a dense mixture of blending styles to become a much larger band. The 1st was a 3-piece vinyl record of blues-based rock with southern dementia.
Greg: Most of the themes are about relationships. I personally was looking to get a bigger, more produced sound than the previous albums.
Jim: To his credit, Stacey has always valued the band’s input on how to arrange his songs, but on this album, he really let the band go. As a collaborative group, we trust the creative process and at the same time, we really focus on the lyrics and the feeling of the song. We try to add musical support to Stacey’s storytelling. We got very cinematic on this one.
Are there any personal stories or experiences that significantly influenced specific tracks?
Stacey: Strangers was a recent relationship but reflected other experiences too, where you feel you know someone, but in the end, you don’t know them at all. Difficult is not my story but I wrote it after talking to one of my best friends about his family and how torn up they were as their parents were in the process of dying and the bitter feuds that arose. I was sitting in my car next to an Atlanta restaurant called La Fonda and it took me about 15 minutes, it just came out.
Andy: Beaming was a song I was had in my back pocket for more than a decade. I worked it out once with my band The Yum Yum Tree, but we are a 3 piece, and I’d always heard Beaming as a huge song with lots of instrumentation and vocals. So, I brought it out for Blackfox to workshop, and we were able to make it sound like it was in my head.
Beaming was written at a time where I felt unsure of myself and a relationship I was in. It’s about witnessing someone talk about you to someone else from afar.
If someone is beaming when they are talking about you there’s no hiding how they really feel despite anything else.
Beaming is about not being able to hide how you feel about someone.
Monica: Andy Gish brought in “Beaming”. Stacey has asked the other songwriters in the band to contribute songs. “Strangers” reminds me of the soap opera “Dark Shadows”. I referenced or tried to embody the vocals of Serj Tankian on “Bring your Fire”.
Mitch: I personally needed to throw down some punk influences and deepen my rock grooves on a new kit that captured the sound of the first kit I ever owned.
Jim: There are so many classic keyboards and arrangements I love and admire but rarely have a chance to show that influence. I think about what keyboards they would use and how might they use them. I’m nowhere as talented but occasionally I can stumble into that territory. So, with Goodbye This Time, I got to reference The Wrecking Crew and Sonny and Cher. For Running Out of Danger, it was 10cc. For Difficult, it was Danny Federici from Bruce Springsteen’s band. For Strangers, it was Rick Wright of Pink Floyd.
Did you explore any new genres or sounds in this album?
Stacey: This album is the heaviest musically that we’ve done, closest to hard rock. And I love the epic feel of Beaming, Sacred, and Running Out of Danger.
Monica: Bringing in songs from our other songwriters brought a new energy.
Andy: We really used vocals as an instrument on lots of these songs. Running out of Danger is a perfect example of this. It was really fun to let the vocals make this layer of sound.
Mitch: It’s a whole new world of blending the old with the new, and the next record will be completely different than 4, while maintaining our core principles.
Greg: I think and I feel the other band members would agree, that we serve the song. The end product crosses many genres not by intention but what was best for the song.
Jim: I tried to bring in a lot more synthesizers this time. I used more electric pianos on the last album.
How do you see your musical style evolving with this release?
Stacey: This album explored our power and all of our talent.
Monica: One of the powers we have as a band is that we can come up with different arrangements easily. But it can be a problem because we might not always remember which arrangement we settled upon. Having band members with decades of music experience is a benefit for sure.
Andy: Blackfox really is a collective collaborative. Every person in the band has or has had multiple other projects and many of us currently lead other bands too. I feel like with previous albums, I have come in to add some sparkle with vocals but with this album I feel like the sparkles were part of building blocks of the songs.
This album seemed much more collaborative than previous album.
Greg: This is a culmination of all of the previous albums and all of the band members’ musical experience which is naturally evolving into numerous styles that we hadn’t touched on before.
Jim: We a much better at letting the song dictate style rather than applying a style to the song.
Are there any tracks from the album that you’re excited to perform live?
Stacey: Running Out of Danger, Sacred, Strangers, and Beaming all rock so hard.
Monica: Probably Bring your Fire.
Andy: I love performing Goodbye This Time, Beaming and Difficult.
Greg: Beaming, Bring Your Fire, Sacred
Jim: They are all challenging in their own ways, so also rewarding.
Looking back at the making of this album, what was the biggest challenge you faced?
Stacey: We approached this methodically, the basic tracks were good, Our producer, Greg Wright, made this album happen with arrangement and parts that created tension in the tracks at the right time.
Monica: Deciding on which songs will make it to the album.
Mitch: As always, maintaining space for each other’s parts and creativity.
Greg: Not rushing the end product. Taking time to explore ideas and not hurry through just to get finished.
Jim: Having the chance to get all the parts in we wanted for each song and then getting it across that final finish line.
What part of the album are you most proud of?
Stacey: The sound and power of the songs and recording.
Monica: I suggested we go comic book (I was thinking the Avengers panel artwork) I glad we went in that direction for the art. Ryan’s daughter’s artwork is featured on the cover.
Andy: I really love Goodbye This Time. Monica Arrington (also performs as Nerdkween) is by far the most accomplished singer in Blackfox and I love that she’s lead on this track. This is a song unlike any song I’ve ever been a part of performing.
The eclectic nature of Blackfox really gets me out of my default indie rock way of writing and performing. It’s like a muscle I’ve never used, and it helps me in writing outside of Blackfox, too.
Of course, I’m proud of how Beaming turned out after spending years as just a voice memo.
Mitch: The beginning, the end, and oh yeah, everything in between.
Greg: Me personally, the production.
Jim: The whole album. We’re really firing on all cylinders.
What can fans expect next from you after “Blackfox4”?
Stacey: Our next album is going to be more pop and more collaborative. Something to look forward to!
Monica: More music coming!
Andy: Well after spending time at Real World studios recording this summer, for the first time ever in my career, we have so much material coming down the pipeline. It’s a really good feeling.
Mitch: Next album will have its own personality, and possibly multiple personalities!
Greg: Continuing to evolve. The next project will be the first project where all of us were together for a week which helped us shape the initial sound farther than we have on all the previous albums.
Jim: We spent the last part of July in residence at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire, UK and knocked out basic tracks for our next album working with Grammy-Award-Winning Engineer Katie May. 2026 will have us finishing up the tracks with our producer/bassist Greg Wright and hopefully, mixing with Katie for a late-2026 release. There’s also a documentary, a photobook, and some live release events planned. It’s going to be an exciting year, again!
