Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes

Sub Pop Records

By Amanda Hanson

Music as religion. It's a concept that is often bandied about by those disenfranchised with proper organized faiths and whom also tend to fall into the category of die-heard music fan. Some would even argue that if you took heavenly music out of the religious equation--lose the gospel, take away the hymns, no more monk's chanting--that the various houses of the holy would find their seats all but empty. Truly divine music touches the soul, inspires the imagination, brings people together, heals the deepest of wounds, and above all else, has the ability to transport the mind to somewhere else.

The young band from Seattle who recently released their first full-length album go by the name of Fleet Foxes. Remember it, Fleet Foxes, because the eleven pastoral songs that the folk-pop quintet have recorded here are instilled with the ability to transcend space and time and are musically mature well beyond their maker's years. The fact that a band so young has created an album that sounds so timeworn is, well, disorienting. Is it the 18th century on acid or simply 2008? You be the judge.

Founded two years ago by best friends Robin Pecknold and Skye Skjelset in Pecknold's parents' basement somewhere in the great Northwest, the Foxes are now five deep with Nick Peterson, Christian Wargo and Casey Westcott rounding out the group. Fleet Foxes rise to buzz-worthy "band to watch" within that timeframe is remarkable. One listen to their self-titled debut is all it takes to indoctrinate a new believer. Like so many of their neo-freak-folk counterparts (Coco Rosie, Devendra Barnhart, Joanna Newsome), the Foxes are revolutionizing what was once a retro genre into something far more modern and interesting by only glimpsing at the past as opposed to remaining stagnated by it.

21 year-old Pecknold is the lead singer and songwriter beholden of the angelic voice that guides the Foxes' stunning three-part harmonies found woven throughout the album's pop hymns. Two of the album's songs are sung entirely in multi-part harmonies, the death evoking "Quiet Houses" with its lyrical looping of "Lay me down, darkening, come to me" and the sublime "Heard Them Stirring" with no lyrics what-so-ever, just a lot of "ahhing." This harmonic bliss lends to a surplus of visual imagery, most notably a rustic white-washed church set at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains with its front doors thrown wide open for all the town to hear. Gospel music is obviously an influence on these secular-sounding backwoods tunes, as are folk classics from the band's parents' vinyl collections: The Beach Boys, CSNY, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel and The Zombies.

Lyrically, the songs are heavy on the natural world amid small town pre-industrial living, equal parts sweet and eerie. Where "Ragged Wood" trots along with hopeful glee suggesting to "come down from the mountain" and "run through the forest" to a suitor who patiently waits below, "White Winter Hymnal" stands out for its enigmatic and poetically dark reference to little heads falling, turning "the white snow red as strawberries in summertime." Death sneaks into several songs, ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song," "Your Protector" and "Oliver James") but is not always immediately recognizable under all of those stunning harmonies layered with acoustic guitars, rolling drums, jangly piano and the occasional flute.

Comparisons between Pecknold and My Morning Jacket's Jim James' vocal stylings are inevitable. The two bearded front men share soaring falsettos and a penchant for reverb-laced vocals, adding an ethereal element to their band's overall sound. But, where James is becoming more and more known for his experimentation with MMJ (and let us not forget that MMJ like to ROCK), Pecknold and the Foxes keep it simple by sticking to what they do best. They deliver balladry so warm and lush that it comfortably wraps you within its evergreen blanket of sun-soaked beauty. This is music to bask in.