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A must for all folk fans
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
“Fleet Foxes Are Not Hippies,” ran the recent headline of a feature in a Seattle arts paper, just above a smaller headline that read: “Don’t Let the Floppy Hats, Jesus Beards and Five-Part Vocal Harmonies About Rivers, Trees and Sunshine Throw You.” With a start like that, you half expected what followed to turn into something from The Onion. Instead, the group’s de facto leader, Robin Pecknold, explained that the “hippy” accoutrements of dabblers such as Chris Robinson, of the Black Crowes, were symptomatic of an acquisitiveness that couldn’t be further removed from what hippies initially stood for. You can see why it might be a tricky area. The five members of Fleet Foxes must have heard some music made in their lifetimes, but you wouldn’t know it from hearing this debut. Fleet Foxes is proof that the US alt-folk well has yet to run dry. And, indeed, much of what follows an introductory liturgy called Red Squirrel/Sun Rises sounds like a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young improvising to keep their spirits up while waiting to be rescued from a well. So much music meant to evoke what Greil Marcus, in Invisible Republic, referred to as “old, weird America” does so simply by keeping it spare and pushing up the reverb knob so that the results can’t help but sound ethereal. There’s an element of that approach with Fleet Foxes. At the same time – in particular on the rapt, wordless dawn chorus of Heard Them Stirring – it highlights the breadth of their harmonic span. Miraculously for a 21-year-old, Pecknold appears to have perfected the art of writing songs that appear not so much written as retrieved from your own subconscious. Van Morrison achieved a similar thing on his 1974 masterpiece Veedon Fleece, tapping into what he has called a shared “folk memory”. On Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, Pecknold delves into imagery that could have come straight from that album: “Wanderers this morning came by, Where did they go, Graceful in the morning light, To banner fair.” Your Protector is no less cinematic in its span, a last will and testament mapped out around the album’s biggest hook. On the folk ballad Oliver James, gentle picking gives way to Pecknold detailing its subject’s demise: “Washed in the rain, no longer.” Sounding like a desolate Neil Young over a choir of David Crosbys, Pecknold delivers the album’s most sustained shiver on Meadowlarks. “Little children laughing at the boys and girls,” he sings as though broadcasting from a fever dream, “The meadowlarks singing to you each and every day.” And far from being lost in translation, the beauty he writes about seems magnified when Fleet Foxes set about recreating it in notes and chords.Read full review
key tracks:- meadowlarks mykonos white winter hymnal he doesnt know why i stumbled upon fleet foxes by chance. after reading a review about them in a magazine i decided to randomly search some of thier music videos online - a wise decision indeed. mykonos is as catchy a pop-folk song as you will ever hear, and im glad it made it onto this reissue of the album, but the original album itself sounds great as it is. white winter hymnal is another song that sounds unusual when you first hear it, but it soon sticks in your head and is another great song. meadowlarks is a beautiful, goosebump inducing offbeat ballad with soaring vocals from Robin Pecknold that match the bird metaphors perfectly. whilst lyrics like 'hummingbird just let me die, inside the broken ovals of your olive eyes' could melt the hardest of hearts. the harmonies that come from this amazing band, enhance such a wonderful, autumnal record that will stay with you forever. the vocals are crisp, the sweeping soundscapes of the songs transport you to another world, and each song is a little story that makes you want to hit play and listen to the disc again and again. the music and the lyrics are guaranteed to soak into your soul, and your life will feel a little richer for having this record in your collection.Read full review
Purchased this CD after hearing white winter hymnal again on the radio - I'd forgotten how good it was. This CD is a rarity for me as I liked nearly all the tracks the first time I heard them & the rest quickly grew on me. It's a very smooth & easy CD to listen to as background music & I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone - give it a try, you won't be sorry !
Having previously purchased the CD I was dissappointed to find it was not the Special Edition. I am very pleased with the CD I have bought using EBay, It is the 2 CD edition. The bonus tracks are extemely good.
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