Album Review: Fozzy – Boombox – May 2022
On Friday, Fozzy is releasing their eighth studio album, Boombox. The journey of Fozzy’s career is unlike many others. Starting off as members of Stuck Mojo fronted by WWE wrestler Chris Jericho, the early Fozzy years had quite a gimmick to them. As time has gone on, they’ve grown out of that gimmick, and they’ve found their own loyal fan base, many of whom don’t even realize Y2J’s connection to wrestling.
Boombox suffered delays, as everything else has over the last two years. What the band ended up producing is a solid album, with some great, catchy hooks. The first single, “Sane,” and the recently released single “I Still Burn,” are already crowd favorites at shows, as we saw last month.
The album starts and ends strong, but does dip a little in the middle. The song “Ugly on the Inside” has a chorus that contains “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi.” I suppose it’s a line that people will be able to sing along to instantly, but it feels very cringey.
There’s also a cover of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood classic, “Relax.” The band’s does a great job making a heavy version of it, but it doesn’t change the fact that the original isn’t really a great song. Sure, we love singing the chorus, but there’s not much more to the song. As a 30-60 second jam, it would be fun, but as it pushes near the 4 minute mark, I’m over it, and more than ready for the next track.
But as I said, it’s got a strong finish. “Omen” has some powerful guitar work from guitarists Rich Ward and Billy Grey. You’ll find a theme on a lot of these tunes is great riffs, accompanied by soaring vocals from Jericho. We recently spoke with Ward, be sure to check out that interview, and we discussed what it was like finishing this album in the era of Covid, and how that extra time gave them a chance to really add the powerful riffs to the album.
Fozzy’s last album, Judas, saw the title track reach levels of success that the band had never seen before. Will they find similar success with Boombox? They certainly have stuck to what works for them, with an album of fun songs, that are sure to resonate with audiences.