reax music magazine :: music + culture » Reviews » Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

It starts with an off key chorus, something a tad off key, revealing its innocence, reminiscent of “Barbara Ann” by The Regents.  Then the five piece push back the curtain revealing their stage to be much more expansive than a five piece arrangement could ever muster.  Mountains, countrysides, and deep river valleys are revealed that any listener will get lost in. This first self-titled LP from Seattle’s Fleet Foxes evokes pastoral strings and three part harmonies of the 60’s and 70’s, as if Crosby, Stills and Nash produced a movie soundtrack with Ennio Morricone.  As the most anticipated indie act of last year, and with Sub Pop winning the bid war, the Pacific Northwest label proves to be a good home for Fleet Foxes with vocal comparisons to My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.  The group’s purpose came into being when friends Robin Pecknold and Skye Skjelset committed to writing music beyond the standard verse-chorus-verse formula.  Combining two songs into one, melding two different rhythms, even using a capella’s conjoining into one, as with “White Winter Hymnal,” a “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” opening that dances in your head for at least a week.  This a daring album from a young group of musicians that ends up as a celestial composition of exquisite music.  A sincere effort to take folk into a pop realm, and pop into an intellectual realm.  Bliss.