I bought this mostly for 2011 completeness, expecting based on everything I'd heard about it that it would be so much overproduced, underwritten tosh. Actually, it's great: a warm, dynamic, gospel-ly and occassionally spooky-sounding record that really gives you a feel for Sam Beam's vocal chops, much more than on either of his first two famous records. Only "Godless Brother in Love" and closing track "Your Fake Name Is Good Enough for Me" are tedious, and the latter would have been great had Beam chopped it off at four minutes. Elsewhere, the album is full of lush but smart instrumentation, like the xylophone underpinning "Monkeys Uptown" and "Glad Man Singing", probably my two favourite instances of that instrument on tracks from last year (and it was a big xylophone year); or the alternating woodwinds and (I think) detuned electric guitar that weirden up the end of "Rabbit Will Run". Much of the record ("Half Moon" in particuar) sounds like something a (much) more adventurous Fleet Foxes might make. Beam's beard is clearly the biggest though.
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