Fleet Foxes - Sun It Rises

Fleet Foxes - Quiet Houses

Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains

I am in love with this band. This is more like an “Album of the day” again, but I can’t say I love every single song on the album yet (hey, it’s only been in heavy rotation for the last couple days, so only 2/3 of it is amazing to me so far…I’d say that’s pretty good though). I first listened to this album on the three hour drive to Rehoboth Beach a month ago, and on the Infiniti sound system it was just magic. Beautiful skies, thoughts of boardwalks and ice cream and ocean dusk in my mind, and some of the best indie folk music I’ve ever heard in my life coming through the richest sound system I have access to.

Fleet Foxes are getting a lot of comparisons to the Beach Boys and My Morning Jacket. My Morning Jacket definitely sounds very close to these guys (BEFORE their latest album…whatever that was…what happened MMJ?). I actually think Robin Pecknold, the lead singer, sounds a lot like the lead singer of Band of Horses, one of my other favorite bands. There’s a special way they enunciate words like “here” as “HEE-yar” or “in” as “EE-uhn” while singing. I love it, it’s like real southern soul singing, not country. And the Beach Boys comparison stems from the crazy harmonies, intricate melodies, and slightly dreamy reverb. They use such a wide range of folksy and rock and poppy instruments. And it’s so honest, no bullshit whatsoever.

I hate trying to pigeon-hole music like this…I know if I read something was “indie folk” I would find that rather pretentious and possibly difficult to identify with or get excited about. But what we really have here is old-fashioned, good music that could have been recorded in a Bob Ross painting anywhere in the world…the birds sitting on a shady tree watching the band strike mysterious minor chords and weave rich, haunting melodies as the sun sets in a distant wood. I am going through some depression right now, but as soon as I put this on I can escape for a little bit and lay down in the leaves by a mountain somewhere all alone and safe. There’s a dose of Appalachia that feels so so right…and this is coming from a girl who adores synth music, Bjork, and all sounds inorganic in many ways. The complete opposite also intoxicates me, when done right. My mom used to watch “The Dollmaker” a lot when I was growing up (yes, for anyone else who has seen it, I have the scene where Cassie gets run over by the train solidly ingrained in my memories until I die and still get shivers…check out minute one of the trailer), and this reminds me of music that could have been used in any scene of that wonderfully scored rural movie.

If you listen to the sample(s) above, be sure to listen to them on nice speakers or headphones…you need the fullness and warmth that a shitty laptop speaker cannot provide to really get the idea. The last half of “Quiet Houses” picks me up and throws me into the air in some wild, fairy-tale dance over a meadow.

Bottom line: this is truly some great music. If I had a record player I would buy the vinyl and listen to it nonstop. I think that would be the icing on the cake and add that little extra touch of lo-fi beauty.

Tags: fleet foxes, song of the day, the dollmaker