Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
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Free Music Notes for Fleet Foxes
Free Music Review: A Musical Space to Live In
Hit: 5 Stars
"Fleet Foxes" was not at all what I expected, but it has turned out to be a rewarding investment. The album began turning up on my Amazon recommendations shortly after I picked up the new Sigur Ros recording. Seattle's Fleet Foxes have very little in common with the experimental Icelanders, aside from a similar release date and an ear for ambience. They are a folky, song-based vocal group with relatively short, tuneful songs. As such, the Fleet Foxes are aligned within a strong tradition of American pop music that allows them to be both nostalgic and timely.
The most pervasive influence on "Fleet Foxes" is "Pet Sounds" era Beach Boys. For those with attuned listening, the Fleet Foxes have taken an obvious page from the "Smile" songbook. Pulsing pianos, bass and guitars in doubled melodies, textural drumwork, and reflective lyrics delivered in harmony all recall this experimental period in Brian Wilson's career. Paradoxically, the Fleet Foxes "folky" undertones seem to trump Wilson's characteristic "studio-as-instrument" approach. As a result, the tunes are not quite as orchestral in scope - you will hear no bass harmonica and few radical key changes. Even vocally, the Fleet Foxes' harmonies are more choral, rather than the tightly harmonized Beach Boys barbershop style.
As a part of this American "pop baroque" music tradition, it goes without saying that the Fleet Foxes are influenced by classic, songwriting-style rock. It is actually quite difficult, however, to pin down these influences. At times, there is a hint of Neil Young at his most melancholy or U2 in their more organic stages, or perhaps melodic turns reminiscent of Coldplay. Additionally, I experienced an expansive, 21st century ambience, which allows "Fleet Foxes" to exist in a space that is simultaneously otherworldly and tangible, organic and ethereal. As I attempted to specifically pin down exactly who I was hearing in their sound, my list just seemed to grow longer and longer. I felt like there was just one band that would sum the Fleet Foxes up, but that hypothetical band's identity just kept floating out of reach.
Then I realized - perhaps they are a genuinely original voice expressing something new within a well-defined genre. All music comes from somewhere, and although Fleet Foxes can be perceived as derivative, they wear their influences on their collective sleeves in a unique pastiche. This is true in the literal sense, as well. The CD comes in a LP-ish sleeve with a vignette of sorts written by lead singer Robin Pecknold. He talks about the uncanny ability for music to indelibly stamp parts of our life experience, citing personal experiences with recordings by the Beach Boys and Radiohead. His observations certainly ring true, and the artists that he uses as examples in the story definitely loom largely in the Fleet Foxes' sound.
THE LOWDOWN: As the liner notes suggest, some recordings stamp our experiences in unexplainable ways. "Fleet Foxes" has already seemed to do that for this time of my life, and I feel fortunate to have stumbled across an album that has that potential. While I suggest all of the tracks for one reason or another, a single "sample" listen will not do. This is an album to be lived with to be really appreciated.
Free Music Review: Songs For Singing
Hit: 5 Stars
I had a bootleg of this album a month before the official release. (Not to worry, I bought the cd here as soon as it came out) It took this long to write a review because it's not an easy album to fully comprehend in the short term. After the nearly perfect and perhaps more accessible debut ep Sun Giant, this full-length cd was far more difficult to warm up to. But just as in life, where nothing worth doing is ever easy, the brilliance of this album becomes more and more obvious over time.
Comparisons to other bands might seem easy, but ultimately are only useful as a guidepost to a type of sound that might interest you as a listener. So sure, if you like any of the 70's (or 00's) bands with a folk/rock/freak sound you may be open to the Foxes. If Led Zep was your main 70's band, you may want to look elsewhere. The Beach Boys may be one band that could be argued to be a significant influence. (As songwriter and front man Robin Pecknold would probably acknowledge.) Yet they sound NOTHING at all like them. Nothing. But the song structures, the harmonies, the lack of glorious guitar solos (which some wrongly refer to as "chops") might owe more to the Beach Boys than CSN&Y, (who many seem to forget were a super group that could rock out with the best of them when they wanted to).
The most striking thing about the Fleet Foxes, what separates them from most other bands out there today, is not what you have heard. It's not the harmonies. It's not the reverb or the beards or Seattle or the massive buzz surrounding them. It's the most basic of all things when it comes to music. The songwriting.
Pecknold, at 21 or 22, has already composed a collection of classics. At least six or seven of the eleven songs on this album are standards to their fans and will be screamed for and sung along with twenty years from now if we are all lucky enough to be around by then. I kid you not... The other songs are nearly as good, making it the most listenable album to come along not just this year, but probably in many, many years.
If you feel like it, you can read my little battle with Hercules_doh in the comments section of his review. Though I feel even more strongly now about the band and the album than at that time, Meadowlarks still stands out as perhaps the only miss between the first two albums. And it's a very near miss at that. It's actually quite beautiful, but the lyrics at one point become a little too affected to be taken seriously. A minor quibble to be sure.
The best thing for fans of indie music is that this band will never be for everyone. As hot as they are right now, there are already haters out there and ears that are just not open to this kind of sound. As beautiful as the songs are, as sweet as the harmonies are and as absent the screeching guitar solos are: do not be fooled. This is serious music that is just different enough to keep it interesting for a lot of fans but will scare away the massive audiences that would probably end up ruining it.
Free Music Review: Spectacularly delicate, 5++ stars.
Hit: 5 Stars
Saw these guys on SNL, and after the horrible musical guests SNL's had, they seemed like they were from another planet. Their harmonies are choir-like, though their melodies have a strength and ornamented contour of their own. "Fleet Foxes" has the unity of a concept album, consistent in presenting different facets of an overall experience. Within this world they create, are moments of happiness, wonder, tragedy, mystery and more.
The thing is, they don't let anything obvious pervade - the work excels in its ambiguity, its shading and transition. Aside from the more definate verses/lyrics, there are instrumentals, interludes (both instrumental and vocal) that begin to seem like events themselves, usually melancholy and mysterious, sometimes suspenseful, ALWAYS well timed. Speaking as a composer, their music is suprisingly patient and thought out - the drama of it is understated but archs effectively: ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" builds to an emotional confession, then tinges it with a fading minor reprise).
Musically, they do have alot of reverb, but it works, in fact it's essential to the ambiguity they create, and the choir-like beauty. It still seems intimate to me, and the instruments and lead vocal remain defined.
Lyrically, rural imagery follows the music's lead (or vice versa?), and lyrics frequently hint at something that has happened or is about to happen - but the Fleets leave it at that - creating a haunted and universal effect.
Songs:
1. Sun It Rises: melancholy, majestic opener
2. White Winter Hymnal: upbeat, melody has a charming arc (Pet Sounds anyone?)
3. Ragged Wood: a multifaceted, 3 part "experience", finale wins out.
4. Tiger Mt. Peasant Song: pensive, renaissance beauty and another climactic finale.
5. Quiet Houses: a sunny instrumental w/ sparse 'hooks'. I'm a sucker for Maj7th chords.
6. He Doesn't Know Why: several verses of a soaring melody, bursting into an unrestrained hook, soon humanized by harmonies.
7. Heard Them Stirring: an instrumental more pensive than "Quiet..", rollercoaster of different shadings.
8. Your Protector: most aggressive song, effective in its firey drama
9. Meadowlark: intimate catharsis after "..Protector", remarkable senstivity.
10. Blue Ridge Mountains: impossibly beautiful, seems to be the realization of alot of musical foreshadowing earlier in the album. Finale wins again.
11. Oliver James: Simple, understated and seemingly optimistic end.
...I joined just to write this, still perplexed about how good it is. they take so many influences that are musically meaningful and create a world all their own.
Free Music Review: The Sun Rises On Fleet Foxes
Hit: 5 Stars
The five-man group Fleet Foxes have a couple of things in common with Nirvana---like Kurt Cobain's legendary rock trio, the Fleet Foxes also hail from Seattle, and they are also signed to Nirvana's old music label, Sup-Pop. But Fleet Foxes are as far-removed as you can get from the "grunge" sound that Nirvana made famous nearly 20 years ago. The music of Fleet Foxes, led by singer/songwriter Robin Pecknold, is beautiful, gorgeous folk/pop, with stunning, heavenly church-choir harmonies. Many great bands come to my mind when I listen to Fleet Foxes---The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, early Genesis, and Renaissance, with the superb harmonising flair of The Association, the Beach Boys, Crosby Stills & Nash, and the aforementioned Moody Blues, while lead singer Pecknold has a warm, commanding voice that sounds a bit like Chris Martin of Coldplay. This is an outstanding debut album by a band that I hope is going to be around for a long, long time. They're simply amazing! Another clincher for me about just how good the Fleet Foxes truly are is that they never really "rock out" on any of their songs, not even on their more uptempo numbers like "White Winter Hymnal" and "Ragged Wood," which might make some listeners impatient. And yet, it doesn't matter to me at all. Their music is just so hauntingly beautiful and soothing, that I sit there (or lay there) and listen to them totally entranced. Some songs are a little bit better than others, but they're all first-rate, like "Sun It Rises," "Ragged Wood," "Quiet Houses," "He Doesn't Know Why," and my personal fave on the album, the phenomenal "Blue Ridge Mountains." Fleet Foxes also have a terrific 5-song EP available called "Sun Giant" that I also highly recommend purchasing along with this, their self-titled album. I'm an instant Fleet Foxes fan, and I can't wait to hear more music from them and see them live in concert. They are a shining light in today's music world, and I hope that they will be around for many more years to come. Pick up "Fleet Foxes," and know the truth about one of the greatest, most-unique new bands around today.Free Music Review: Fleet Foxes...utterly fantastic
Hit: 5 Stars
any band introduced as offering a "sound combining the baroque psychedelic pop of the '60s, sacred harp singing, gospel, and folk music" requires full attention.
especially when they back it up by selecting Pieter the Elder Bruegel's "The Blue Cloak" as the album cover. these guys are arteests.
it was the most fantastic way of discovering Fleet Foxes, too. I spent an unmeasured time in Good Records, in Dallas, TX, floating through the aisles of discs. one of the listening stations highlighted their self-titled LP, and I stopped to soak it in. the last time I remember the awe of discovery so fondly was when I imbibed Iron & Wine's Woman King EP. Fleet Foxes contains a band full of Sam Beams; haunting harmonies, layered and textured instruments, and lyrics laced with mesmerizing narratives ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song").
one notes the echo of Jim James' vocals throughout the album, but Robin Pecknold's lead quickly billows into much more as his bandmates join the effort ("White Winter Hymnal"). some of the grooves also ring of My Morning Jacket (more Z than Evil Urges), but ultimately Fleet Foxes' depth and range of sound outstrips MMJ. on "He Doesn't Know Why," whispers of the actual band James thread through the measures.
clearly, though, the standout track is "Your Protector." hearing this the first time I thought, "This must be what it was like the first time `The Battle of Evermore' spun on your turntable." yes, I really said that. the track can withstand that comparison. try it.
anticipating your fear that you don't have time to listen to all these tracks, I endeavored to suggest five solid pieces. I found, however, that deciding which tracks would remain was much like deciding which of my ten fingers I would choose to keep, had I the responsibility to sever the others. trust me - just listen to the whole set.