Music Blog

Fleet Foxes' rise to fame in 2008 can't be contextualized through creation myth, character study, or genre vogue. Unlike other bands that ascended in that same year (e.g. Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, No Age), it was only an exceptional sound, not an intruiging background story, that drew our attention to Fleet Foxes. These Seattle boys extracted the fibers of the Americana-pop spectrum, passed them through a vector, and created a music completely of their own. I remember seeing the band perform at small club in Chicago during that winter and vividly feeling like I was standing in a forest, surrounded by cicadas when they dropped into the shaker-soaked, harmony-colored climax of "Blue Ridge Mountains". It takes something special for a Pacific Northwest band to make you feel like you're in North Carolina (especially when you're seeing them in the freezing cold Midwest).

Three years later with their second LP, Helplessness Blues, prepped to hit stores this week, the biggest difference is the tangible weight their name carries among fans and critics. They buzzed to life with such vivacious musicality that we've come to expect something that's consistently above and beyond from Fleet Foxes. There's a demand for transcendence.

Helplessness Blues somehow delivers. Frontman and songwriter Robin Pecknold's introspective tension on the album manifests itself not just lyrically, but also in a musical dialectic revealed through expanded orchestrations, shifting mood swings, and instrumental wanderings. There are moments of man-with-guitar warmth ("Someone You'd Admire") and passages of rustic instrumental diegesis ("The Shrine/An Argument"). The album's wide range is focused by the band's tender directness. There's nothing pretentious about Fleet Foxes' music. Rather there's a plain-spoken empathy that's always been among the band's greatest strengths. 

Their sold-out show at the Crystal Ballroom on Sunday night was a purely physical testament to how large they've grown over the past three years. The room was filled to its fringes with people who not only knew the words to all the old Fleet Foxes songs, but also to the songs on the then-yet-to-be-released new album. The space I occupied in the middle of the vast swath of bouncy floorbards would've probably been about 200 feet outside the front door of the venue I saw the band play in Chicago.

It's annoying when anyone plays the, "they were better back when..." card. But in the case of Fleet Foxes' live show, there was a palbable loss in musical affect playing to such a loud audience in such a large space. Much of their music's compositional strength is grounded in the tension created through sonic patience. The most powerful moments in their music owe themselves to silence. The shakers on "Blue Ridge Mountains" wouldn't work without the prolonged cadence that swells and simmers right beforehand. "The Shrine/An Argument" - the most epic song on Helplessness Blues - has several complete moments of silence that accent the shifting tonal colors of its evolving movements. Most of these details were lost among the crowd's chatter and banter. And once this sense of control and intimacy is lost, the really loud moments in the music are little more than pleasant prongings fading fast into the rafters. Sort of like any other indie rock show.

But don't get me wrong - the band's performance was spectacular. Their set included most of the songs on Helplessness Blues and many old favorites (yeah, they played "White Winter Hynmnal"). Their musicianship was top-notch with vocal harmonies that simmered or soared depending on what was most apppropriate.

But something significant was lost between this show and the smaller club shows they played a few years ago. Something that's out of Fleet Foxes' control perhaps. It's just hard to hear a band with such a fine sense of dynamics play in a room designed for groups with less-refined musical sensibilities. It makes me wonder about the compromises bands make to play to bigger rooms. And in this case, it's only a compromise because they keep writing such great songs that will naturally yield growing audiences.

So I'll accept the catch-22. I'm just not afraid to admit that I liked seeing them much more last time.

Tagged: live review