Review Summary: With every song creating its own natural imagery, The Fleet Foxes have created a wonderful ode to nature.
Fleet Foxes is one of those albums in my collection that I've listened to dozens of times, but one time in particular stands out to me. While wandering on my own in a park in the middle of Spring, I slipped on a pair of headphones, sat down, and observed nature for a bit while Robin Pecknold and company performed their own ode to nature for me. Nothing out of the ordinary happened that day - just some squirrels scurrying up tree trunks while children on a nearby play-set were shrieking with joy - but it's one of the few times an album provided a special lens to better appreciate my surroundings.
This album immediately conjures up imagery with every single song, whether it's the sun rising in (shockingly enough) "Sun It Rises," the running hills and mountains of "Ragged Wood," or the secluded, undisturbed piece of nature in "Hear Them Stirring." Each song's lyrics and overall vibe guide the listener to create their own atmospheric painting in their mind. This isn't an introspective set of songs, but rather they act as broad strokes on the canvas of the listener's mind to form the outline of a watercolor painting of a natural setting, leaving the listener to fill in the details with their own idealized settings. Even when other themes are explored, such as the bittersweet return of a vagrant brother in "He Doesn't Know Why" or the drowning of a child in "Oliver James," everything is done tastefully to provide wonderful imagery and metaphors without falling prey to an abundance of cliche lines.
Musically, the first group that comes to mind is The Beach Boys due to the high focus on vocal harmonies. This band manages to achieve that perfect harmonization where everything sounds incredibly lush, vibrant, and remarkably clear and understandable. They'll pull you in for the grand sing-along choruses in "Your Protector" while also employing wordless vocals to provide the soft and wonderful atmosphere in the instrumental "Hear Them Stirring." They don't deviate too far from the typical rock instruments (with the exception of a well-placed flute), but every note and sound is perfectly placed to accompany the visual landscapes these guys create. The group doesn't get overly technical in their playing, and nor do they need to. The music is accessible enough to get stuck in your head (try not to hum the infectiously simple "White Winter Hymnal") while being warm and atmospherically interesting enough to crawl back to time and time again without losing its charm.
Not every song on here is a masterpiece. "Meadowlarks" is one of three primarily acoustic songs from the album, and is the only one that doesn't grab the listener the way that the rest of the album does. The album is also lacking that extra punch to really give it an emotional connection with the audience. The lyrics here are great at what they do, but hopefully in the future they can bring a bit of the introspection that the folk genre is so well known for without having to sacrifice their fantastic imagery. For now, be content that this album is such a pleasure to listen to. Pecknold truly has one of the greatest voices in recent memory, and listening to him while looking at any scene of nature in motion is truly a treat; perhaps that's the greatest way to really appreciate what The Fleet Foxes have created.
