Resonance

The most notable thing we know about Bill Fox is that we know almost nothing notable about him, and that’s still more than he might like us to know. In the 1980s he fronted a short-lived but well-loved band called the Mice, whose brand of catchy, acerbic power pop inspired Elliott Smith and fellow Buckeyes Guided by Voices. He released a series of solo albums—like 1996’s Shelter From the Smoke and 1998’s Transit Byzantium—that are considered beloved cult artifacts. Yet he has consistently torpedoed any opportunity to become more than a cult artist. He broke up the Mice on the eve of a national tour, and he responded to a major-label offer by becoming a recluse. Fans and a few dogged journalists have sought him out in Cleveland and even located him, but Fox responds with prickly pleas for privacy. He releases an album or two every decade, although it’s unclear whether he’s still writing and recording or has simply amassed a big enough back catalog to mete out as needed.

Fox is cult by choice, but his music is neither extreme nor especially idiosyncratic. He draws from familiar sources—California folk rock, Midwestern power pop, British Invasion—and he seems to be a fan of Dylan, Springsteen (in particular Nebraska), the Beatles, maybe Big Star or Cheap Trick. He traffics in popular touchstones rather than obscure references, as though he wants his songs to sound familiar and accessible: easy to grasp and easy to enjoy. The lo-fi sound quality lends them a living-room intimacy, unfussy and first-take casual. Usually cult artists are cult artists because their vision is too esoteric to appeal to more than a few, but this doesn’t seem to be the case with Fox. He may avoid contact with fans and press, but his music seems to be a means of reaching out; his songs express an intense desire to connect with the larger world. “Let me come before you, let me lose this weight,” he sings on “Desperation.” “Take my hand and understand, say it’s not too late.”

There’s no trace of reluctance or ambivalence on Resonance, Fox’s first album in 13 years; it’s full of sharp lyrics, vivid imagery, crushing confessions, and endearing musical flourishes. Listen to the way Fox opens “My Servin’ Time” with a great rush of words, nimbly navigating the tricky rhythms and internal rhymes: “You’ve been grievin’ for me leavin’ and believin’ I’ll abandon you behind.” But also listen for that strange tape warble that punctuates the performance, as though Fox is recording to an old, warped cassette. Someone else might have scrapped that take, but Fox seems to appreciate the serendipity of the effect. The lo-fi setting might amplify the bitterness of “The Biggest Sale,” but it can also be close to magical. Some odd, unidentifiable something adds a strident beat to the first of “Terminal Way”—it might be a box top or saucepan—and then the chorus reveals it to be a tambourine. Hearing that familiar jangle is like watching a sleight-of-hand trick.

Fox has provided very few details about these new songs. Presumably he plays all the instruments, although we do know that GBV guitarist Doug Gillard added a beautiful solo on “Wildflower.” There’s no indication as to when he wrote or recorded them, and the varying degrees of lo in the lo-fi production suggests he culled the album from various sessions (the relatively polished “Got Her on My Mind” features what sounds like a full band, with organist and even back-up singers). Despite its classic pop touchstones, Resonance nevertheless sounds closely, almost inescapably engaged with the present moment. Fox has always been a politically minded songwriter; in fact, as of this writing, the Mice’s most streamed song by a long shot is “Not Proud of the USA,” which hits even harder in 2025 than it did in 1985. Political corruption and national shame are, like rock’n’roll, both timeless and timely. “Meat Factory” may work over a pat conceit about a slaughterhouse where “all your early childhood hopes get mangled in the blades and spokes,” but with its wheezing harmonica and hymn-like repetition, it recalls the working-class worries of Springsteen. Fox clearly sympathizes with the everyday workers whose lives are wasted on the killing floor, and he clearly despises the greed that motivates such an inhumane system.

He writes like he’s trying to stoke a rebellion. “Lift Your Heads” might be urging those meat factory laborers to organize and strike: “Lift up your faces, my lonesome kin, lift your eyes up to the top,” he sings. “Open your hearts from without and within, lift your heads don’t let them drop.” It sounds like an old labor-camp tune or a union anthem, something Woody Guthrie or Lead Belly might have sung, but Fox manages to deliver it without acting like history might sanctify the sentiment. The song sounds grounded in the past but also thoroughly contemporary—one of many compelling contradictions in his small catalog. Fox is both recluse and populist, the curmudgeon with a big heart. That makes this album sound bigger than a four-track, bigger than a cult.