fleet foxes

WIth my manic rushing yesterday, I had to jump into the car in the afternoon to dash some work related material somewhere. I hurriedly grabbed the new Fleet Foxes CD to listen to in my travels. From the opening, it broke into my conscious like an early start to a peaceful weekend.

Strong, harmonious vocals and crisp instrumentation. A kind of chilled american folk style (not country & western) which emanates from Seattle (a favourite place of mine) and delights throughout the album.

In the little piece of paper that dropped out of the sleeve, it said they had recorded a lot of the tracks in various people's homes and that they'd done the recording as much for their own pleasure as anyone else's.

I found it a highly entertaining listen, my criticism being more one of my mindset at the time of playing, when I was in a mad, driven work mode and the guiles of this music had a possibility of slowing down my internal bpm more than I needed. But thats more about me than them.

Its quite difficult to categorize their musical style which is quite varied within folk-based roots, harmonies, gospel like interludes, some quite baroque moments across a wide variety of instruments. I'm reminded of a favourite band of mine, the Decemberists, for their range, albeit a somewhat different form of story telling. And I like bands that can play and sing well and want to cut their own rather unique path.

I see they are playing the meltdown on the South Bank in a couple of weeks; I assume they will get some UK publicity at this time and its good to see some new and interesting folk bands on the scene.