Fleet Foxes

Since 2006 · United States

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Helplessness Blues (2011)

Helplessness Blues trades some of the debut's immediacy for more ambitious song structures, several tracks shifting entirely in tempo and mood midway through without ever losing the band's dense vocal-harmony core. The title track moves from a plainspoken statement of purpose into a long, wordless coda that functions almost as a separate piece of music. "The Shrine / An Argument" pushes even further, closing on a passage of skronking free-jazz saxophone that has nothing precedented in the band's earlier catalog. It's a record that expands the debut's palette without abandoning what made it work.

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Fleet Foxes

Helplessness Blues · 2011

Fleet Foxes emerged from Seattle in the late 2000s with a self-titled debut built around dense vocal harmonies and a pastoral, reverb-heavy folk-rock sound that drew comparisons to the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash as much as to any contemporary act. The record's warmth and immediacy made them one of the most acclaimed new bands of 2008, and frontman Robin Pecknold quickly became known for a songwriting voice that balanced communal, almost hymnal arrangements with unusually direct lyrics about doubt and purpose.

Helplessness Blues (2011) pushed the band's sound toward longer, more structurally ambitious songs, informed in part by Pecknold's growing interest in British folk figures like Roy Harper. After a lengthy hiatus during which Pecknold attended college and worked as a session musician, the band returned with Crack-Up (2017) and Shore (2020), continuing to expand a sound built on dense harmony and pastoral detail.