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Fleet Foxes | 
 enlarge | Artist: Fleet Foxes
Label: Bella Union
Category: Music
List Price: £11.99
Buy New: £7.98
You Save: £4.01 (33%)
New (23) from £7.69
Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 71
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
EAN: 5033197507620
ASIN: B00180OTAI
Release Date: June 16, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Sun It Rises | | • | White Winter Hymnal | | • | Ragged Wood | | • | Tiger Mountain Peasant Song | | • | Quiet Houses | | • | He Doesn't Know Why | | • | Heard Them Stirring | | • | Your Protector | | • | Meadowlarks | | • | Blue Ridge Mountains | | • | Oliver James |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
It's now twenty years since grunge emerged from then culturally isolated Seattle and Fleet Foxes, the eponymous debut album from the city's latest heroes, demonstrates just how much American independent rock has mutated in that time. The five young members of Fleet Foxes make up a very different sort of rock band, describing their own music as "baroque harmonic pop jams". Even that understates the depths of the quintet's effortless vocal harmonies and gently woozy, folky feel. Of their contemporaries only the enigmatic Midlake and My Morning Jacket at their most fragile come close, but neither could have cooked up the Beach Boys spiritual of "White Winter Hymnal" or its more powerful companion piece "Ragged Wood". In fact Fleet Foxes happily admit to aspiring to an earlier tradition--not just obvious antecedents like the Byrds, the Association, Neil Young and, especially, David Crosby's famously unfocussed solo album If Only I Could Remember My Name but ancient English folk songs and their later American descendents. All were hunted and gathered from the internet--songwriters Robin Pecknold and Skye Skjelset are barely in their twenties. Add a host of unlikely instruments and the results are stunning, the complete antithesis of mainstream stadium indie that has followed Arcade Fire. Still, the cover features a Bruegel painting of peasants that might have graced any Black Sabbath sleeve. In that way at least Fleet Foxes salute a local tradition. -—Steve Jelbert
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 'The sound of ancient voices ringing soft upon your ear' May 9, 2008
William Rycroft (London, UK)
36 out of 38 found this review helpful
In a recent interview Robin Peknold, lead singer and songwriter of Fleet Foxes said 'Four people singing is just as close as you can get musically, because you're all standing next to each other and you're all just an interval away. It just reminds me of family.' With these close harmonies Fleet Foxes made quite an impression at the South By Southwest Festival combining choral singing with folk, gospel, rock and pop to awesome effect. And after the glorious Sun Giant EP the sun has risen again on the debut album from the Seattle quintet.
Opener Sun It Rises begins with a bluesy sounding acapella before an acoustic guitar brings in a far more West Coast sound. A lovely beginning. White Winter Hymnal is an amazing track, the opening line repeated like a round as more voices join in to layer the harmonies on top of one another. The track builds before breaking down to just the voices again at the end. Simple but brilliant. Frequent references to the landscape and wildlife give the album a pastoral folksy feel typified by tracks like Meadowlarks and Blue Ridge Mountains. Ragged Wood has that country feel before quietening and allowing the voices to take control, making it two tracks in one really. Robin Peknold sings alone on Tiger Mountain Peasant Song to great effect, sounding like an ancient balladeer; the music both classical and contemporary. He Doesn't Know Why is a great pop song. Your Protector sounds like it could come from Civil War era America and with its flutes reminded me for some reason of Simon and Garfunkel. The album finishes with Oliver James, which tells the sad tale of a drowning. ' On the kitchen table that your grandfather did make/You in your delicate way will slowly clean his face/And you will remember when you rehearsed the actions of/An innocent and anxious mother full of anxious love'. Beautiful.
The album is strong, undeniably beautiful and will make a great soundtrack for quiet summer evenings. To steal a line of Peknold's this is 'The sound of ancient voices ringing soft upon your ear'.
Ignore at your peril May 29, 2008
rle17 (London, UK)
25 out of 28 found this review helpful
Poor Fleet Foxes, roundly dismissed by a leading UK indie magazine (which shall remain nameless) as "hippies who sing acapella". To which the obvious response is: what's wrong with that? They do it well - very well. Sun Giant, their debut EP, was quite an attention-grabber, and its promise is amply fulfilled by this almost uniformly excellent first album. Suitably, it opens with a Southern church-style acappella burst, oddly propounding a parody of weather lore: "Red squirrel in the morning/red squirrel in the evening." And then, with great assurance, it simply lifts off and coasts seamlessly. Comparisons with (UK-only) label mates Midlake are inevitable, given the shared massed vocal harmonies, acoustic folk influences and weird rural narratives in the lyrics, but really Fleet Foxes are a more accessible proposition: Robin Pecknold's writing packs this record full of grand pop hooks. The reverb is not only in-your-face but utterly spot-on; this is what the Walker Brothers might have sounded like if they'd had access to more modern studio technology, and what an additional joy it is to hear a modern record that is neither ridiculously compressed nor overlong (it lasts just over 39 minutes). Such is the quality that it's impossible to single out highlights; easier instead to identity just a couple of tracks which are slightly below par, including the closing vocals-and-guitar-only Oliver James, this take of which sounds it's trying a little too hard. A better farewell, likewise featuring just Pecknold and guitar, would have been the dazzling Isles, on the bonus CD that comes with certain editions of the album. But otherwise Fleet Foxes' debut is a sheer delight. The band say they've been working at their music for a long time, but as Peely used to say of the Smiths, Fleet Foxes seem to have sprung fully formed from the womb, and this album is all the proof that's needed.
Beautiful July 15, 2008
PDL (Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, England)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
One of those magical albums that doesn't immediately impress, needs a little bit of your time to have a few listens before the true beauty is unleashed and then you can't stop listening to it for days and weeks on end... and then in a few years, you will glance upon it again, dust it down and remember all over again. Buy it...
Wonderful August 23, 2008
C. Brown (Scotland)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Being a fan of 'this sort of music' ie. hymnal, harmony-led tunes, it's not task to give five stars to this wonderful little album. As a piece, the work has a very healing sense about it. This is an album that salves the soul, rather than dwells on the angst of the band, which perhaps puts some people off. All I can say is don't be. It has obviously been put together with a care, love and attention that is lacking in so many records nowadays.
GOOD GOD!!!!!! June 20, 2008
Darrell G. Preston (UK)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I felt the need to write and add my support to the majority of reviews for this album. God this is good, sometimes an album just comes along and knocks you off your feet and you think what was that. This IS one of those albums, and I mean album, because you have to listen to this as a complete entity and just get washed away in all the different emotions that it conjours up. As near a perfect album as i've ever heard. Just put it on the stereo, lie back and dream.
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