Tuesday, 30 March 2010

‘Fleet Foxes’ by Fleet Foxes

‘Fleet Foxes’ are on of those bands I’d love to claim I heard early. Sadly, this wasn’t the case, and if anything, by the time I’d bought myself a copy of their debut album, it was already a bona-fide hit. Deservedly so, as it’s wonderful on more or less every level.

From beginning to end, ‘Fleet Foxes’ oozes confidence and quality that most bands could only dream of one day exhibiting. They make the kind of records the Beach Boys would have made throughout the seventies if Brian Wilson hasn’t lost his mind – there is pretty much no higher praise I can give. The combination of folky musicianship and exquisite vocal harmony is welcoming and spirit lifting, and some of the individual tracks the album offers – ‘Ragged Wood’ and ‘He Doesn’t Know Why’ in particular – are as good as anything you’ll hear on any other album by any other artist. Brilliantly, the band also look exactly like you’d expect them to – every member looks like the kind of bearded yokel you’d run away from if you met them up a mountain, with the exception of lead guitarist Skyler Skjelset who looks like an innocent traveller the rest of the band have kidnapped. Glorious.

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