Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop)

By Lou Battaglia
Published: June 5th, 2008 | 1:00pm

While Fleet Foxes is currently touring North America and riding the wave of critical and popular enthusiasm that their first EP Sun Giant has inspired, the Seattle band is now dropping an eagerly awaited full-length release on a steadily growing audience that is clamoring for more of the band’s alluring music.

Despite the fact that the recording of this self-titled full-length actually took place before Sun Giant, fans of the initial release will find that Fleet Foxes represents nothing less than a cohesive supplement to the stellar Sun Giant. In fact, the full-length finally cements a distinctive character for a band that has been fending off a never-ending comparison to My Morning Jacket, due to the two groups’ shared reliance on reverb-laden vocals and a vaguely similar country/folk-rock aesthetic. Considering, however, that My Morning Jacket does not even really sound like My Morning Jacket anymore, perhaps the sonic similarities between Fleet Foxes and pre-Evil Urges My Morning Jacket (however superficial) will fill the void for those MMJ fans that are not down with Jim James’ current exploration of his inner-Prince.

Nevertheless, Fleet Foxes clarifies a considerable amount about the band and distinguishes them as a rather unique sounding outfit in today’s chaotic indie music world. The band’s never-ending attempt to merge the sacred aims of gospel and the intimate sensibilities of folk establish a unique, yet somehow familiar, listening experience that channels an antiquarian time and place. Fleet Foxes gently carries along their baroque influenced songs by reveling in gorgeous Motown-meets-the Mamas & the Papas harmonies while drawing from both the classic West Coast folk of Crosby, Stills & Nash and America, and the wistful layering of Future Games-era Fleetwood Mac: A potent sonic palette indeed.

Throw in a subtle symphonic sensibility that punctuates such tracks as “Your Protector” or “Heard Them Stirring” and a pronounced affinity for late-1960s folk-rock and singer-songwriters’ B-sides (which drifts across in tracks like “Quiet Houses” and “Ragged Wood”), and a hypnotic and multi-layered sonic synthesis is established. At times this synthesis, especially on “Blue Ridge Mountains," suggests what may have happened had Brian Wilson, backed by members of the Band and the Byrds, ventured off into the Washington wilderness and made an album based on the experience.

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