Bella Union.
It’s been a long time since some gentlemen from Seattle have been talked about in as glowing terms as Fleet Foxes. The comparisons stop there, as the Foxes are as far from noisy and gnarly as it’s possible to get. They have far more in common with a new wave of folky stuff coming out of the US right now, with Bon Iver’s acoustic masterpiece another legitimate contender for the album title this year and Department of Eagles’ second effort getting them the attention they deserve in the wake of their contemporaries success.
But in my opinion it’s Fleet Foxes all the way. “Beach Boy harmonies are matched with rootsy passion to create a CSNY for the noughties” is the most common description, and it’s not much wrong. However, what it does miss is the staggeringly evocative nature of the Foxes’ music. The album creates a whole gallery’s worth of pastoral images, with echoey acoustic guitar and whip crack country rhythms stirring up an earthy album without hippy overtones. Opener, “Sun It Rises” is grand and mighty enough to soundtrack a National Park, and “Ragged Wood” could make you chuck in this whole experiment in city living once and for all, while “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” demonstrates the band’s mastery of quieter dynamics and “Oliver James” shows off their trump card in the form of warm voiced lead singer Robin Pecknold. As if all that weren’t enough, they save their best for (nearly) last, “Blue Ridge Mountains” beginning like a piece of 15th century church music, before building into a soaring masterpiece about (yep, you guessed it) the great outdoors.
In a time of throw away culture and disposable everything, Fleet Foxes have created something built to last, as deep and as soulful and as spiritually fulfilled as we all could be. As good as a walk in the woods on a clear and crisp winter’s day, and it doesn’t get much better than that.
Links: -
http://www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes
YouTube - Tiger Mountain Peasant Song -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vu_3RS2rO78&feature=related
Posted In Features, Dec 08 2008.
Words - Martin