[Montreal Gazette] Alex Henry Foster hopes to stand under bright lights again in 2021

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Alex Henry Foster’s first solo album, Windows in the Sky, was inspired by the death of his father. In light of the pandemic, he says, the songs of grief “became a soundtrack for what was going on.” 

Alex Henry Foster hopes to stand under bright lights again in 2021

You may not have heard of Alex Henry Foster, and you might be surprised to learn that he’s created a remarkable buzz around the world with his challenging alternative rock. The lead singer of the Montreal band Your Favorite Enemies has been written up everywhere from BrooklynVegan to NME, and his first solo album, 2018’s Windows in the Sky, debuted at No. 3 on the Canadian albums charts.

Foster performed a remarkable concert at the 2019 Montreal International Jazz Festival, with the singer/musician and 11 other players rocking through an intense extended version of the heavy album, which was inspired by the death of his father. It was supposed to be a one-off event, but Foster ended up touring the show across Europe.

Now there’s a triple-vinyl/double-CD live album coming, recorded that night at the jazz fest at Club Soda. It also comes with a DVD of the show. It’s titled Standing Under Bright Lights, and features 2 1/2 hours of music. It will be launched in April.

“It was really some kind of communion we were living with the people in a very incredible way, so that’s why for me it was very emotional to look back on it,” Foster said in a recent interview from the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, where he has been holed up with his dogs since last summer.

“When I played the jazz festival, I had a lack of comprehension of the whole project and what the songs meant. And it was through people’s reaction that I realized that those songs were bigger than my perspective. I don’t mean that in an ambitious kind of way, but more in an emotional kind of way. People were relating to those songs and they found comfort in those songs, because I’m talking about grief and mental illness. With COVID, it became a soundtrack for what was going on. So that’s why I’m OK with releasing this.”

Foster has ambitious plans to tour Europe and North America in 2021 to support the album, but of course he has no idea when live music will return to the world’s stages.

Brendan Kelly
January 01, 2021