Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Seattle's Fleet Foxes traffic in baroque harmonic pop. They draw influences from the traditions of folk, pop, choral, gospel, sacred harp singing, West Coast music, traditional music from Ireland to Japan, film scores and their NW peers. The subject matter ranges from the natural world and familial bonds to bygone loves and stone cold graves. InchSupremely crafted and confidentInch - Pitchfork. Album Tracks 1. Sun It Rises 2. White Winter Hymnal 3. Ragged Wood 4. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song 5. Quiet Houses 6. He Doesn't Know Why 7. Heard Them Stirring 8. Your Protector 9. Meadowlarks 10. Blue Ridge Mountains 11. Oliver James

Like very nearly every worthwhile thing, making this album was not easy; it was a difficult second album to make. Drawing inspiration from folk/rock from about 1965 to 1973, and Van Morrisons ASTRAL WEEKS in particular, HELPLESSNESS BLUES sees Fleet Foxes heighten and extend themselves, adding instrumentation (clarinet, the music box, pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, Tibetan singing bowls, vibraphone, etc., along with more traditional band instrumentation), with a focus on clear, direct lyrics, and an emphasis on group vocal harmonies. We have it on good authority that the album is called HELPLESSNESS BLUES for at least a couple of reasons. One, it's kind of a funny title. Secondly, one of the prevailing themes of the album is the struggle between who you are and who you want to be or who you want to end up, and how sometimes you are the only thing getting in the way of that. Having heard HELPLESSNESS BLUES, we mean to get out of it's way. Album Tracks 1. Montezuma 2. Bedouin Dress 3. Sim Sala Bim 4. Battery Kinzie 5. The Plains/Bitter Dancer 6. Helplessness Blues 1. The Cascades 2. Lorelei 3. Someone You'd Admire 4. The Shrine/An Argument 5. Blue Spotted Tail 6. Grown Ocean

Seattle's Fleet Foxes make such complex, harmonic, 70s inspired folk rock, it's hard to believe that the band's principle songwriter, Robin Pecknold, is only 21 years old. There's a moment on David Crosby's InchLaughingInch where Cros, Joni and the whole gang hit a harmony that might be the most gorgeous moment in the history of recorded music. The Fleet Foxes know that moment and they go for it. This EP is a precursor to the band's debut, RAGGED WOOD, out in June. Album Tracks 1. Sun Giant 2. Drops in the River 3. English House 4. Mykonos 5. Innocent Son