Fleet Foxes debuted with such a spectacular grasp of Americana that the band seemed to hail from indeterminate time and space -- they could've came from the Great North Woods, the Mississippi Delta, the Blue Ridge Mountains -- when in fact they were from outside Seattle. Sure they garnered knee-jerk reactions to contemporaries like My Morning Jacket or Band of Horses but these were more to do with the mellifluously clear voice Robin Pecknold shares with Jim James or Ben Bridwell than anything else. Fleet Foxes have the sort of condensed sound that triggers a cascade of aural reminders without even approaching a facsimile of their influences.
They distill the history of American music with genre-busting focus. Their sound reminds me of a cake, or some other concoction where the individual components are apparent, yet indivisible from the larger whole. Rather than being followers of the "parfait" model -- a layer of woodsy folk here, a stratum of AM rock there, a dusting of sunny pop, a patina of Appalachian harmonies --Fleet Foxes are masters of synthesis. On their self-titled debut, the band channeled this energy into taught, arrangements that sailed forth beneath this tension; a sort of precise meandering. On Helplessness Blues they roam free, osmosing into extended jams, tempo shifts, drifting into open territories under a slack mainsail.
More...
0 comments
Post a Comment