Fleet Foxes - Shore - 8/10

 

Robin Pecknold, the lead singer, songwriter and driving force behind Fleet Foxes, has been on a musical journey. The band’s 2008 self-titled debut was a medieval leaning paean of rousing folk. 2011’s follow up ‘Helplessness Blues’, was a more experimental kaleidoscope of reflective melodic narratives, whilst their most recent effort, 2017’s ‘Crack Up’, was a record shrouded in self-doubt. It contained some beautiful moments (‘Fool’s Errand’ was one of their finest tracks to date) but sounded like Pecknold was growing weary and running out of steam. It’s drawn out and pondering songs meant it struggled to impact on the listener’s consciousness.

It is such a joy then, that this record is such a light and free flowing listening experience. Fleet Foxes have shaken off the shackles and blown away all the cobwebs and sound all the better for it! Perhaps the carefree feeling was added to by a lack of build-up. ‘Shore’ was not anticipated or long awaited. Indeed it just seemed to arrive. The album was released with just one days’ notice in a similar move to Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’.

Opening track ‘Wading in Waist High Water’ is a brief and gentle meandering opener. It passes too quickly to make much of an impact but is beautiful none the less. ‘Sunblind’ packs more of a punch. A tribute to musical legends who have recently passed, it finds Pecknold lament “for Richard Swift, for John and Bill, for every gift left behind its will”. The driving verse builds to a fully encompassing chorus that finds the component parts unite to perfect effect.

‘Can I Believe You’ is the finest track on the album. Choral vocals and urgent guitars provide the perfect frame to Pecknold’s passionate and melodic vocal. The whole song sounds like a chorus. It is superb. This is not the ragged trousered folk of their debut, or wayward ponderings of its follow ups, but something more urgent and impassioned. Pecknold (who was responsible for writing and recording the majority of the record due to the lockdown) sounds recharged, refreshed and reinsipired!

The rollicking rhythms of ‘Jara’ and ‘A Long Way Past the Past’ continue the theme and pay tribute to the sounds that gave the band huge success, whilst ‘Featherweight’ is a more pensive number that ripples on from a Fleetwood Mac inspired opening acoustic riff.

That’s not to say Pecknold has discarded his fondness for a ballad. ‘For a Week or Two’ is a stunning choral piece that sounds like it was written to be performed in lofty cathedrals. The background instrumentation is barely required. This is a piece that celebrates voice and harmony - it is sublime! ‘I’m Not My Season’ is an example of classic Fleet Foxes songwriting. A gently strummed acoustic guitar backs Pecknold's yearning and earnest vocals. Both songs are real highlights and provide an ideal link between the more urgent numbers.

There are touches of experimentation and wider influences too. The opening bars to ‘Maesteranza’ sound like Crowded House, whilst ‘Young Man’s Game’ could have been written by fellow US indie darlings Band of Horses and is one of the most exciting songs on the record.

The album clocks in at just over 54 minutes and the length will challenge even their more dedicated fans to maintain their attention from end to end. There is perhaps a slight quality control issue here particularly at the close of the album where the songs slowly lose their individual identity and begin to blend together. The epic ‘Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman’ would have provided a typically rousing Fleet Foxes album closer, but it is in fact the album’s title track, a slower and reflective piano ballad, that closes proceedings.

‘Shore’ may get slightly overlooked in a year of noise, but for Fleet Foxes fans this album has all the promise to become one of the band’s finest moments.