Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
Sub Pop / Stomp
Released by the indie big wigs at Sub Pop, Fleet Foxes is a record as redolent of the past five years in their label's take on indie rock as it is of 1976. The credible 70s rock Fleet Foxes trade in comes, oddly, as the missing link between their Sub Pop labelmates Band of Horses and The Shins. While not as consciously melodically twisted as The Shins, nor as wall-of-guitars as Horses, they ply a similar line of alternately tremulous and soaring classical songwriting: note the threadbare backing of 'Oliver James' practically withering behind the powerful pipes of vocalist Robin Pecknold. Elsewhere, the beautiful, pinpoint harmonies nail the band's California-via-Seattle sound a few pegs higher than they would sit otherwise: 'Sun it Rises' takes the band to the woods via an opening set of Appalachian harmonies, 'White Winter Hymnal' presses up close to Spector-esque 60s girl-group styles, the woodsmoke shuffle of 'Ragged Wood' is something like Midlake with a bit more spine and verve.
Producer Phil Ek is as much a part of this Fleet Foxes recording as he was on the first Band of Horses record. Which means you can expect to luxuriate in reverb, clean electric guitar lines, layered acoustic guitar and, generally, resonant 70s analogue-echoing ambiance. Fleet Foxes might come from the windier (flutes!), hippyier and folkier side of the Americana lineage evoked by the guitar-heavy Band of Horses, but they pack as many indie-pop hooks as Horses do – if not more. All of which is to say that if Band of Horses sound like Neil Young with Crazyhorse, Fleet Foxes sound more like Young in solo mode or jamming it out with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
Nevertheless, it's an album that transcends these references points. A surefire indie hit – as Sub Pop have the knack of delivering – Fleet Foxes is a welter of good songwriting, dressed up in appropriate threads by Phil Ek. It ought to make both harmony-loving indie-popsters and guitar-loving indie-rockers unite in a spirit of quasi-hippie transcendence.