Fleet Foxes make patently uncool music, which is actually fine. It's genuine, open-hearted. Young dudes laying it all out there, soaring melodies, soft harmonies. No one is reinventing the wheel. Your parents will like this as much as you, and knowing that actually makes the music that much more heavy. Imagine being in your mid-20s in some shitty basement writing songs that are a direct conduit to what you heard growing up, no disconnect between then and now, just music you love, affecting and pure. Of course, that's not to say that Fleet Foxes haven't spent the last couple years blowing their sound out, expanding and changing and moving forward—when those drums come in paired with that rock solid bass and Robin Pecknold sings You'd wait tables/ and soon run the store and there's all of a sudden a sloppy Crazy Horse guitar lick that pops up out of nowhere—it's like, Okay. Damn. Glad you guys didn't succumb to the pressures of being constantly present. New songs and covers every day so the internet doesn't forget about you. Sometimes it pays off to play the back until you're ready to burst out again. Fleet Foxes' new record Helplessness Blues is out May 3rd. It's been awhile, but not as long as it feels.
