Pet Fox's 'Balance' Is a Taut, Humming Masterpiece of Restraint
The Sonic Breakdown
Pet Fox are Theo Hartlett, Morgan Luzzi and Jesse Weiss, out of Boston, and Balance is their fourth full-length for Exploding In Sound. The shift this time is practical rather than philosophical: after writing and demoing the thing in their own rehearsal space, they took it to Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville and cut it mostly live across seven days. It is their first fully studio-produced record, and you can hear the decision in the first ten seconds of the title track — two minutes and eleven seconds of coiled, unhurried momentum that would have sounded thinner anywhere else.
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Luzzi’s bass is mixed as a melodic instrument rather than a foundation, so when Weiss drops into the pocket on “Leveled Out” the whole arrangement gets a second floor to stand on. Greg Obis mastered it at Chicago Mastering Service, and it breathes.
The Spatial Dynamics: Farrar’s live-room approach leaves real air between the three players. Nothing is stacked for the sake of being stacked; “I’ll Wait” goes by in two minutes flat and never feels hurried.
Standout Performance
Claire Whall, whose additional vocals thread through “Moving Along,” “Avoidant,” “Redo Everything” and the four-and-a-half-minute closer “For Sale.” She is never the lead and never decoration — she is the harmonic second opinion the songs needed.
Why It’s Certified
⚡ Post-Trash’s Kris Handel heard Hartlett’s writing “sharpened into a muscular beast,” and called the record one where “songs are immediate and catchy yet an air of complexity that is unending and mysterious.”
🌈 The Fire Note, noting a band that has “quietly” built “one of indie rock’s most focused catalogs,” called Balance “their most expansive and confident work yet.”
🌈 Twenty-nine minutes. Nine songs. Not one of them overstays.