Fleet Foxes | 
| Manufacturer: Sub Pop Records
Buy New: $7.99
Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 21
Genre: pop-music
Media: Music Download
Running Time: 0 Minutes
ASIN: B001A3AA0G
Release Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 I dont know any better June 16, 2008
Herucles... Doh!
43 out of 54 found this review helpful
So I was passing through one day and noticed the Sun Giant cover art by Fleet Foxes on Amazon. I was fixated by it. Yeh sure, dont judge an album by its cover art, but I looked at that spectacular view with the colossal architecture in the background and thought, I want to be there... If they can put me in that picture for just one track... Im bought. The opener does just that... and the single 'Mykonos' is a breathtaking dreamscape of accessible melody.
So, yeh Pitchfork and all the other high brow publications can give a handful of important reasons why this album is worth its weight in gold... but I was more interested in the melodies. For me, Fleet Foxes is most glorious when it strikes that harmonious chord. When all those exotic instruments materialize a blissful tune. Tracks like 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song", "He doesnt Know Why", "Your Protector" "Oliver JAmes".
And maybe thats inferior of me to look at it this way. But maybe thats why 'Tv on the Radio's' so called most important album of the year - (Cookie Mountain), wasn't collectively anyones' favorite album of the year (bar a few gorgeous tracks). Melody is underrated. And in my opinion Fleet Foxes' debut album lacks that melodic cohesion. It has the resources, the spirit and the know how, but it lacks that innate musical melody to make it a 5 star album.
Even the tracks I mention suffer from awkward moments of cheap thrills. For example, the latter half of "He doesn't know why" just ends up going through the motions, for the sake of completion.
A brilliant first half of whimsical phrasing is finished off with a generic and passive ...."There's nothing .. I can ... doo" which just deflates a very beautiful and engaging piece of music.
How does that go unnoticed. I dont know... but the song deserves a better chorus line. It deserved more attention.
Of course I expect to get slammed for this.
 Hold me dear, into the night June 4, 2008
E. A Solinas (MD USA)
25 out of 27 found this review helpful
The Fleet Foxes are a rock band that sounds like no other -- imagine a pastoral choir overwhelming a sweeping folk-rock band, in the middle of a sunlit forest in the spring.
That's about the sound of the Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut album -- it's a stream of lush, jangly folk pop, edged with a touch of baroque and country-rock. While their "Sun Giant" EP was an excellent introduction, it's nothing compared to the rough-edged grandeur of the full-length album, with its glorious instrumentation and vivid lyricism.
The only really offputting part of the album is the opening five seconds, when an off-key chorale sings, "Reeeeed squirrel in the morning/Reeeeeeeed squirrel in the evening..."
Then the song suddenly melts into a gentle acoustic guitar shimmering with keyboard. "The sun rises, over my head/Hold me dear, into the night/Sun it will rise soon in the morn..." Robin Pecknold sings with all the solemnity of a choirboy. His voice soars over the steelier riffs and thumping drums, only to settle down with, "The sun rising, dangling there/Golden and fair, in the sky..."
Wow. When an intro is that lovely, just imagine what the songs that follow are going to be like.
In this case, it's the shifting folky "White Winter Hymnal," with its kettle drums and beautiful campfire harmonies ("I was following... I was following... I was following the pack/all swallowed in their coats/with scarves of red tied 'round their throats"), followed by the endearingly energetic rocker "Ragged Wood" ("You should come back home/back on your own now!").
It gets no less endearing after that: Gentle bluesy ballads, jangly folk-pop with lots of squiggly mellotron, sweeping pop chorales, bouncy countryish rockers with lots of intertwined guitars. Things get quieter near the end -- "Fleet Foxes" ends with a trio of lower-key, folkier ballads, sometimes with nothing more than Pecknold's voice and a guitar.
There's something very warm and welcoming about the Fleet Foxes' music, and there's hardly a song on their self-titled album that doesn't contain that sunniness. And though the bittersweet songs focus on the usual topics -- family, love, lost friends -- there's a strong feeling of pastoral beauty, especially since they're sprinkled with meadowlarks, wood-women, "quivering forests," Tennessee and grassy graves.
In fact, the lyrics are crammed with vivid ("And, Michael, you would fall/and turn the white snow red as strawberries") and striking language ("I hold a cornucopia and a golden crown"). At times, the band's lyrics are pure poetry ("Wanderers this morning came by/Where did they go?/Graceful in the morning light/To banner fair/To follow you softly/In the cold mountain air...").
These songs are wrapped in lush melodies of striking music, which happily swirl together folk, classic earthy rock, pop, baroque and a bit of country. And an coustic guitar is the lead instrument here; sometimes it's all by itself, and sometimes it's intertwined with a smooth mix of other instruments -- hollow drums, rippling mellotron, steely guitar, and a hint of harp being plucked somewhere.
And finally there's Robin Pecknold. He sounds a little off-key in the spare ballads, but in the more complex songs he sounds sweet, strong and truly beautiful, especially when he does that soaring thing. And I have to say, I'm a sucker for the band's sunny chorale sound -- the harmonies really make those melodies sound exquisite.
The Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut is one of the best albums I've heard all year, with its blend of styles and bittersweetly lovely songs. Haunting and truly lovely.
Amazing June 4, 2008
Matthew T. Brown (Richmond, IN USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Witness Fleet Foxes at their best. Every track is like a piece of art in some shape or form- each melody- hauntingly beautiful and unique; needless to say it will stick with you. In my opinion, this is the best album of 2008 thus far. Do yourself a favor, buy the album and support this magnificent group of artists.
 Fleet Foxes - S/T 8/10 July 24, 2008
Rudy Klapper (Los Angeles / Orlando)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Checking out this album on Amazon, I noticed that the online-retailer mega-giant recommended that this debut went "better together" with the latest My Morning Jacket release. I couldn't say it came as a surprise; critics everywhere have been bandying about Fleet Foxes as the latest MMJ southern-fried rock outfit, and the Internet hype machine long ago praised them as the next big thing.
After one listen to Fleet Foxes, it's hard not to make the obvious connections between this five-piece from Seattle and that five-piece from Kentucky that has distinguished itself from the rest of indie rock with its focus on Americana and country-rock. Hell, Fleet Foxes' singer, Robin Pecknold, sounds so eerily like My Morning Jacket's Jim James that I was hard-pressed to believe this wasn't a MMJ side-project at first listen. Pecknold even has the carefully unwashed, longhaired mane down pat.
Despite the initial similarities, however, Fleet Foxes does manage to move out from the looming shadow of their more famous indie rock brethren, shying away from the experimentalism that has defined MMJ for the past few years and focusing more on the folksy, Appalachian rock of the It Still Moves era.
Fleet Foxes takes more from the backcountry, lumberjacking side of their home state than the more modern, grunge-inflected era. Their songs sound like they should be piping lazily out the door of some lonely cottage high in the mountains rather than the windows of some hipster's Prius. "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" wanders along on a gentle acoustic guitar line and Pecknold's powerful voice singing about "where the birds wait / and the tall grasses wave." This is pure American-bred rock `n roll at its finest, calling to mind not just bands like My Morning Jacket and Wilco but also old standard-bearers like Woody Guthrie.
The music is appropriately pastoral and driving at different times, ranging from "Sun It Rises" dreamy harmonizing and plucked guitar to the rollicking drums and triumphant chorus on "Ragged Wood." Pecknold is clearly the star here, his confident voice anchoring each song with presence and the ability to teleport the listener straight into the wild settings of the band's tunes.
Perhaps the best aspect of the album is Fleet Foxes' unerring ability to craft incredibly resilient, catchy melodies one after the other. This isn't a country-rock band that lets it all out in a raging storm of guitar heroics; instrumental breaks in general are kept to a minimum. Fleet Foxes know how to craft a tune. The harmonizing between the piano and Pecknold on "He Doesn't Know Why," the `60s sing-a-along of "White Winter Hymnal," nearly every song has a melody that is immediately pleasing to the ear.
If there's anything to be held against this album, it's the unfortunate tendency for the album to blend together near the halfway mark. Pecknold may have a distinctive voice, but he sounds pretty much the same on every song. Lyrically the album is fairly vanilla, sticking to simple tried-and-true themes like love, the beauty of the country life, and solitude. While the music is unfailingly strong, the lack of any major stylistic differences between any two songs makes some confusion as to which is which unavoidable.
For a debut by a band that was practically unknown a year ago, however, Fleet Foxes is a fantastic piece of work. Fleet Foxes has the potential to be one of America's great musical poets, and their first release should firmly cement their place as not just another My Morning Jacket clone.
consistently strong album June 10, 2008
D. Cepulis (Texas)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Great modern pop offering with a spiritual feel. Personal and unpretentious. Hints of Talking Heads, Kingston Trio, and the latest Euro power pop bands. Not just one or two good singles, but an overall great album that is consistently uplifting and entertaining throughout.
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