Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

LP 2, out May 3

I was following the, I was following the, I was following the, ...

http://pitchfork.com/news/41402-fleet-foxes-return-with-new-album-tour/

this album title is parody

that said i dug some songs on the last one

reminds me of the broadcast/focus group cover http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/fleetfoxes_1.jpg

holy 1972

better than the last cover

sounds exactly like their last album.

the new song, I mean.

sort of looking forward to it.

last one really grew on me over time

they're definitely a band that i "like" but that's about it -- saw them at pfork & enjoyed it, i think a few songs are a classic, a friend played the last album when we were chilling by a fire & it worked well (also driving thru tennessee)

you easily could've told me that the new song was a deep cut off the last album but w/e

big ups to sub pop tho in letting me stream this w/o having to give them a fake email address

such a useless band

uselessness blues

fleet the foxers

I am perplexed by this idea of evaluating bands based on their "usefulness"

y'know, like Godsmack is a terrible band but they are useful for motivating our armed forces!

Olivia Newton John is useful for jazzercise

lol

there are plenty of people who use music as a tool. even tool music.

I assume it's standard to hate these guys but I don't mind them. Saying I like them would be quite a stretch though.

they are already kinda dated by their animal name though. and its too late for them to pick a beach name. people should just change group names with every album now. have twitter new name contests. its the 21st century.

beach foxes!

Furry Bastards

very cool cover. it's time for a new album as the last one was pretty addictive.

Lyrics don't make a whole lot of sense

also kind of sounds like an outtake from a Simon and Garfunkel session

Another new song and it's pretty average...

http://onethirtybpm.com/media/listen-fleet-foxes-battery-kinzie/

I loved English House the first time I heard it and every other song since has been disappointing.

five songs in, waiting for a "white winter hymnal." this title track sounds promising. . . .

These guys have 4 awesome beautiful songs (first three off debut album & Mykonos) but beyond that are so powerfully average they may as well be made of bread.

baby im a want you

hmm im loving this.

I downloaded this to see what the fuss was about. Made it half way through the 4th track before 'select all - send to trash'.

It's enjoyable, but nothing really as memorable as the debut or the EP. I keep listening to it tho, cause it's really pretty. Not unlike the Midlake album last year.

these guys sound like wussies

i wonder when folk music became associated with being a wuss- was it just years of lilith fair being the most famous "folk" festival?

it was probably when they started singing like girls

i'd describe Robin Pecknold's voice in a number of ways, some of which aren't favorable, but i would never say that he sounds like a girl. what girl do you know that sounds like him?

such a useless band

― originoo gun kl0pper (k3vin k.), Monday, January 31, 2011 3:38 PM (2 months ago)

Another one of those widely praised bands that for some reason can hardly get a hearing on ILX. I like 'em. Title track is stunning.

idk if i'll actually read the review, but 8.8 bnm:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15363-helplessness-blues/

idk if i'll actually listen to the record

yeah, seconded

fleet foxes only ever make me think of the ways we identify with and construct identity through music. they never make me think of music, even when i'm thinking of something undeniably beautiful, like "white winter hymnal" or "mykonos". i say this because i'm across the divide, on some other team. it has nothing to do with the fundamental quality of their music (whatever that might be) or even its subjective appeal. it's just that the ties that bind bind me to other things, and the distance seems unbridgeable. my loss, right?

right. i'm working through it. i'm never gonna be a fan of comfy-style, beards & tevas 60s/70s revivalism, with music that combines earnest emotionalism with the desire to create a soothing campfire atmosphere. it seems too undemandingly suburban, domestic, and i'm a fucking freak, dammit. but nor am i 100% happy with the oppositional, elitist, punk-derived associations i forged in my youth, associations that seem to demand that i sneer down from on high at this sort of thing.

basically, it sucks to be held prisoner by what you think about the people who supposedly think certain things, by your assumptions about other people's assumptions about culture and meaning. i mean, i like fleetwood mac A FUCK OF A LOT, and even if they're just watered-down latter day pretenders to that kind of radiance, fleet foxes occasionally give me a similar chill. so i've decided to try to like them, as a sort of thought experiment. you know, when i get tired of turning this electric wizard record over and over and over again...

I find them insanely boring, including this new one. Don't get the appeal at all.

i guess i do too. i mean, i got high ideals about broadening my horizons and giving them a fair shot and all, but whenever i try i get bored. right now, i'm listening to the new beastie boys instead, and it's not like i'm proud to say that.

Feel not shame

o but...

Also I love the phrase "insanely boring". So many ways to take that.

"This record is so devoid of interest that, in listening, I felt some measure of sanity slip away." Isn't that like end of The Dark Crystal?

I'm a few listens in to this album... I don't dislike it but it's not gripping me the way the last one did.

I enjoyed this on first listen but the vocals are a serious problem. I wish they had saved the gloopiest harmonies for special moments - at times it's like they focused more on the vocal chords than on the songs themselves.

That's my problem with them: every song is a special moment apparently.

I don't get the utility of accusing any music of being "faux"

how 'bout "feh"

fleet fauxes

utility is that it's dismissive, therefore useful in the dismissal of that which offends

anyway, this is OTM:

I wish they had saved the gloopiest harmonies for special moments - at times it's like they focused more on the vocal chords than on the songs themselves.

― skip, Thursday, May 5, 2011 9:49 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's my problem with them: every song is a special moment apparently.

― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 5, 2011 9:50 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

suppose i feel the same way about, say, U2. there is virtue in restraint, in allowing only a little of that vocal/emotional sunshine in, holding it back, letting tension develop. fleet foxes don't do restraint, and it makes them seem "easy" (to use a gross metaphor). otoh, that kind of oversharing has hardly held U2's career back, and though critics don't often appreciate it, a lot of people clearly do.

fwiw, this album gets along very well with certain chemical enhancements.

like a diet soda?

a bottle of sleeping pills and a goodbye note

this is great y'all are crazy

granted I'm only on the first song, haha

so this is basically a Simon & Garfunkel record

And you must worship it or be destroyed, apparently.

hello inertia my old friend

warm... and mandatory

lol

Paul Simon's new album >>>>> this thing

I liked the bit of the stream I heard of the new Paul Simon thing - obviously he's moved on from this folk-pop strummery harmony-laden stuff lol

but really the dual-melody harmonies on this are VERY S&G, seems like the most obvious reference point to me

hmm, some much more abrupt/discordant moments on here compared to the last one

kind of boring.

I loved the last one - loved the last one. The new album is good but somehow "good" feels disappointing.

Largely the same feeling with their first and second^. It's like listening to a group of classically trained celloists... I mean, fuck, I'm impressed and all. They're doing everything perfectly. But it's a snooze.

nothing worse than a bunch of classically trained cellists

this is great. seems to me the only misstep is some of the gypsy fiddling stuff

^^^ I really like this album.

If competent vocal harmonies were still a rock norm nobody would give a fuck about these beardos.

But then Pitchfork always creams itself over half-assed, reverb-drenched Beach Boys rips

this doesn't really sound like any Beach Boys record

harmonies /= Beach Boys

Yeah, this is a lot closer to CSNY than anything Beach Boys. I mean, its easy enough to understand why people would dislike this type of thing, so theres not need to just make up nonsensical dismissals.

I said Simon & Garfunkel upthread but yeah CSNY is also appropriate

Grateful Dead, too.

nah the Foxes can actually sing

seriously one of the things I cannot get past with the dead is how shitty their vocals and vocal melodies are. drives me up the wall.

Foxes are "better" singers, I'll grant you that.

There are some pretty nice harmonies on Workingman's Dead though.

CSN(Y) is right on the money I think

this Father John Misty album is really good btw

it is much funnier than anything FF has ever done, that's for sure

I'm not so much into the Father John Misty stuff, but I love Poor Moon.

feel like "Only Son of the Ladies Man" = perfect sequel to Leonard Cohen's "Death of A Ladies Man"

really? no one else likes this? just me?

humph

they played track yesterday on the cbc and i really liked it - just haven't had a chance to check out more.
i was surprised how much it made me laugh!

Witting A Novel - such an amazing song!

yeah def a highlight. the neil line is hilar

wtf his show at the Independent sold out in less than an hour!

I hate the internet.

i've tried to go back to crack-up and i just can't dig it. it feels so. . . forced and purposely obtuse. it's certainly pleasant-sounding, but there's not much beyond that.

helplessness blues otoh —and i said this at the time— is monumental. songs like 'sim sala bim', 'the plains / bitter dancer', and especially 'grown ocean' are stunningly transcendent. they use traditional sounds in terms of instruments, but the structure and arrangements is like late 60s david axelrod meets. . . i don't even know what. it's one of the most gorgeous pieces of music i've ever heard. csny if they were obsessed with stanislaw lem and debussy. i have no idea how much of the album's lyrics are autobiographic, but even if they aren't, he sings everything as if he's seen it all and is the most content and wisest world-weary narrator.

a very rare thing, indeed.

Crack-up does seem like a very deliberately constructed misstep, like they set out to make an album that confounds expectations, upends standard song structure, deviates considerably from their prior releases - and it does do all of that. The problem is none of those things succeed in making the album interesting, it's nigh unlistenable in its aimless dodging and zig-zagging from one idea to another.

it's nigh unlistenable

see, i would disagree on this. crack-up is so carefully considered in every aspect that it's actually very easy to just put on and play all the way through. but if you really actively listen; well, that's where it falls short. it feels like a fireworks display after the home team has lost — nice to look at, but what's the purpose?

Can’t say much about the whole album but “If You Need To, Keep Time on Me” is beautiful